The Girl From Eureka Read online

  ‘Everyone.’

  ‘Everyone?’ George looked positively stunned.

  ‘Careful, George, your breeding is showing,’ Will teased.

  George just grunted. Will was well aware that George didn’t like to be reminded of his upbringing any more than he wanted to be reminded of his.

  The son of a wealthy gentleman, George Preston’s upbringing would have been vastly different to Will’s. But a falling out with his father when he was a teenager saw George determined to prove to the old man that he could make his own way in the world. Joining the military had been a surprise to George too—he had woken one morning after a drinking binge to find himself enlisted. He met Will that same day and, whilst they were an unlikely pair, they had become firm friends during their first posting in Scotland.

  ‘There seems to be no caste system here,’ Will explained as they rode slowly through town. ‘It’s quite astounding. The working class and the upper class toil side by side in the goldfields.’

  ‘I confess I did not expect to see so many women here in this outpost,’ George noted, dipping his head in greeting at another group of ladies as they sauntered by. Some smiled and giggled up at him, while others turned their faces away. He smiled back cheerfully to both groups.

  Will laughed at his friend’s ability to attract pretty women with nothing more than a wink and a grin. George was a handsome fellow by anyone’s standards. His black hair and tanned skin showed the Spanish heritage on his mother’s side. Long sideburns framed the high cheekbones and strong jaw that women seemed to flock to.

  ‘There are many married women. But just as many, if not more, unmarried. You would think it easy for men to find a wife, but somehow the ladies have all the power and many choices besides. Women have jobs, they are allowed a licence to dig for gold and many do. They do not simply have to accept being someone’s wife in order to survive.’

  He thought of Miss Wallace again and wondered what she did for money. He highly doubted she was married. Married ladies didn’t usually frequent the front bar of a working man’s pub. Then again, neither did unmarried ladies. Not ladies of good breeding in any case.

  ‘The women get to pick a husband?’ George’s shocked voice snapped him out of his distracted thoughts.

  ‘Yes, more often than not. Surprising isn’t it.’ It still truly amazed him the way men would fall over themselves to secure a wife. Groups of men often made the trip down to Melbourne when a ship from England was due in. They would gather on the wharf, each man with hopes of meeting a woman who would agree to be his wife, if not for love and companionship then for safety and security.

  ‘It’s a brave new world.’

  ‘And have you been picked?’ George teased.

  ‘Ha, not as yet old friend,’ Will said with a wry laugh. ‘Come now, George, you know we military men have no stomach for marriage. It would take one hell of a woman to entice me away from a life of travel and adventure.’

  ‘Cramped accommodations, foreign diseases, terrible wages.’ George listed all the less than attractive joys of being tied to Her Majesty’s army.

  Will laughed. ‘Well, I never said it was perfect.’

  Marriage wasn’t something Will had thought a lot about. He truly believed that men of the military had no use for a wife. What was the point of marrying a woman you may never get to see again once you were shipped off to another part of the world for years at a time?

  ‘Come now, let’s head back to the high street, shall we,’ George said turning his horse around. ‘Women can wait, but my stomach cannot. Is there a place we can get something to eat that will save us from having to consume the slop masquerading as food the army rations out?’

  They’d almost reached Main Street again when eight of the local constabulary galloped past, heading into the Eureka goldfields.

  ‘What’s all that about?’ George asked as the dust raised by the horses enveloped them.

  ‘No idea.’ Will turned his horse back to the way they had just come from. ‘Shall we take a look?’

  Arriving at the Eureka goldfields mere moments behind the police, they could already see the mayhem as miners ran in every direction across the fields yelling ‘Joe! Joe!’, as they were chased down by the mounted troopers.

  ‘Who’s Joe?’ Will asked a man who stood by watching, seemingly unconcerned by the ruckus.

  ‘Traps. Local coppers,’ the man grumbled in a strong Scottish accent around the pipe in his mouth. ‘It’s a licence hunt. The Assistant Commissioner has upped the hunts to five times a week now, to check for diggers who don’t have licences. Ye ought to know this, ye work for the bastards.’

  ‘Right.’ He’d heard about the licence checks of course, and the penalty of fine or imprisonment for not having one, but this was tantamount to a stampeding convict round-up and it didn’t sit well with him.

  A policeman rode in their direction at a trot. Two men with hands tied were attached to a long rope and being forced to run alongside, or be dragged if they couldn’t keep up. One man stumbled and the policeman leaned over and hit him across the head with his wooden batten.

  ‘Constable!’ Will called, moving his horse into the path of the policeman. ‘You may have the right to arrest these men, but you do not have the right to treat them so inhumanely.’

  ‘I’m just following orders,’ the sour-faced policeman answered.

  ‘Whose orders?’

  ‘My orders.’

  Will turned his head to see a higher-ranking police officer ride towards them. He stopped near Will and George and studied them with suspicion, and not a little bit of contempt.

  ‘And you are?’ Will asked.

  ‘Doing my job,’ the man said. He spoke with a cultured British accent that surprised Will. Most of the local police officers he’d met were largely uneducated.

  ‘I’m sure the Commissioner would prefer you treat these men with more care. They are not murderers after all.’

  ‘They’re scum miners who don’t believe they should pay for the right to dig for gold.’

  ‘Perhaps they are digging for gold because they have no money to pay for the licence in the first place,’ Will suggested.

  ‘I have the feeling the irony is lost on him.’

  The trooper gave George’s comment no more than an irritated sneer before returning his attention to Will.

  ‘Trooper …?’ Will started, waiting for the man’s name.

  ‘Donnelly,’ the man responded. ‘Sergeant Donnelly. Do not feel sorry for these men, Lieutenant. They have broken the law. They’re dreamers and vagrants and you, sir, have no jurisdiction here. You are nothing more than a guard sent to watch over Her Majesty’s gold as it is shipped to Melbourne.’

  Will’s ire began to rise. This man was obviously from good breeding, his accent and his countenance made that clear. But he was also an arse. And he was also right. The army and the police were quite separate in their roles in Ballarat.

  ‘So I will kindly ask you to keep your unwanted suggestions of leniency to yourself and to not interrupt my men in the fulfilment of their duties,’ the Sergeant continued. ‘Good day, sir.’

  And with that, he rode away after his men and their human cargo.

  ‘What a charming gentleman.’

  George’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on Will and he bit back his own irritation. ‘Hm, charming.’

  ‘Come now, Will, he is right,’ George said, playing the voice of reason. ‘This is none of our business. Let’s get back. I feel the lateness of the hour and before we followed this rabble back here, I saw a few of our comrades hovering about the Bath Hotel. I could use a feed and a whiskey, couldn’t you?’

  Will agreed wholeheartedly. But as they were about to turn their horses away from the patchwork of mineshafts, he saw her. She stood with one hand on her hip and the other shading her eyes as she looked directly at him. Apparently realising he had spotted her, she bent back down to the little cradle that sat before her. The fields were dotted with the little
wooden contraptions, not unlike a baby’s cradle, used to filter the dirt in order to find the gold that hid in it. He studied her as she shovelled earth into the top. Next, she tipped water across the sieve of the cradle before using both hands on the lever to rock the cradle this way and that.

  Watching her, he remembered the dirt beneath her fingernails the first time he met her as she’d played with the buttons on his tunic. Miss Indigo Wallace was a digger. He wondered idly if she were licensed. Perhaps luck had been on her side and had spared her capture by the traps today.

  Then he recalled the last time he’d seen her. Covered in vegetable muck and standing in the pigsty looking like a furious angel. He felt a little guilt settle in about the manner in which he had ejected her from the bar.

  ‘Just one moment,’ he told George and urged his horse forward through the diggers who were still reeling and cleaning up from the raid.

  He’d have to have been blind not to the notice the looks of fear and suspicion from the miners, but he ignored them and focused on the girl.

  She stood again as he stopped his horse at a respectable—and safe—distance from her.

  ‘Miss Wallace, we meet again.’

  Her irritation was palpable. Then again, he didn’t believe he had ever seen her when she wasn’t aiming some measure of anger in his direction. But her mood appeared much more sombre than at their previous meetings.

  ‘I fear I owe you an apology for the last time we met.’

  She stared at him for a moment, her expression set in stone. Most women would take his sincere apology with grace. It was becoming quite evident that Indigo Wallace was not most women.

  ‘You part of that lot?’ she asked, tilting her head towards the direction the troopers had gone.

  ‘Not at all. We were simply curious as to what they were doing.’

  He smiled a little to try to break the ice. ‘Are you licensed to dig, Miss Wallace?’

  ‘Are you going to arrest me if I’m not?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, surprised at the fury emanating from her. ‘I would just warn you. I would hate to see you dragged away behind a horse.’

  ‘But you are happy to see others go the same way?’

  He frowned, his irritation rising at being likened to the viciousness of the police round-up. ‘I do not believe in treating any man thus. No matter the illegalities he may have committed.’

  She stared at him with narrowed eyes, as though she were trying to decide whether to believe him or not. ‘Then I shall offer you a word of warning, sir. I’d stay away from the Eureka Hotel if I were you. Most officers drink at the Bath or the Clarendon. It’s safer for you there.’

  He allowed himself a small smile at her warning. ‘Thank you, my lady. I shall take that under advisement.’

  He knew he should turn his horse and leave her be, but he couldn’t seem to make himself leave. He wanted to talk to her a little longer.

  ‘So you are a digger,’ he said, realising he was stating the obvious. ‘Have you been successful?’

  ‘I do alright,’ Indy replied, the caution evident in both her voice and her wary eyes. ‘Not found enough to buy that castle in England yet, but we poor colonialists make do with what we have.’

  She was most definitely suspicious of him and his motives. Then again, if he’d struck gold he wouldn’t be advertising it around the goldfields. It was a good way to get robbed.

  Will scanned the area and across to the distant campsite where the diggers of the Eureka lead tended to live.

  ‘You live in that camp?’ he asked. A small twinge of concern poked at him. ‘Is that not dangerous for a young woman like yourself?’

  ‘No more dangerous than being thrown through a garbage chute by a soldier of Her Majesty’s service,’ she shot back, a dangerous twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Yes, well.’ He squirmed in his saddle and tried to ignore the questioning glance George sent him. ‘I apologise again for my method of extraction.’

  ‘And I do not live alone in the camp.’

  He was surprised at the disappointment that flooded him. She was married.

  ‘You have a husband?’ The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

  He thought he saw a hint of a smile touch her lips, but before she could answer, a middle-aged woman ran up to Indy, seemingly oblivious to Will and George.

  ‘Indy, Sean just told me they arrested young Aidan O’Farrell. Mrs O’Farrell was hoping you could go and bail him out again and—’

  Indy shushed the woman quickly and tilted her head pointedly at Will and George.

  ‘Oh.’ The woman smiled to cover. ‘Begging your pardon, officers.’

  ‘This is Annie,’ Indy introduced. ‘I live with her in the camp.’

  ‘Lieutenant Will Marsh.’ He introduced himself. He heard George clear his throat. ‘Beg my pardon.’ He’d almost forgotten his friend was there. ‘Ladies, may I present Lieutenant George Preston.’

  ‘A pleasure, ladies.’ George dipped his head in greeting, then gave Will a pointed look that said he wanted explanations later.

  ‘And what brings two of Her Majesty’s finest soldiers to the digging fields?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Curiosity,’ Indy tossed in, giving Will a glaring smile. The beauty of it nearly took his breath away.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, feeling his own smile broaden as his eyes stayed on Indy. ‘Curiosity.’

  Like lightning, Annie’s demeanour changed from polite lady to fearless protector. ‘Well, you can take your curiosity elsewhere, sir,’ she spat, putting a proprietary hand on Indy’s arm. ‘I’d say if you’ve that kind of curiosity you should visit Miss Margaret’s establishment just outside of town. The ladies there will fix all the curiousness that ails an officer.’

  Only shock and good manners had Will stifling the laugh that threatened. George wasn’t as polite and had to cover his chuckle with a cough.

  ‘I see you are well looked after, Miss Wallace. We’ll bid you good afternoon, ladies.’ Will dipped his head in farewell and turned his horse away, following George slowly out of the goldfields.

  ‘Did that woman just direct us to the town brothel?’ George asked, both fascinated and delighted.

  ‘I believe she did.’

  ‘She has concerns for her young friend’s virtue.’

  ‘She does.’

  George gave Will a sideways glance. ‘Does she need to be concerned?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Will scoffed. ‘The girl is a good eight years my junior. A child at best.’

  ‘No, she’s older than that,’ George said, taking a look back over his shoulder. ‘And she’s hardly a child, Will.’

  ‘We’re not here to fraternise with the women.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ George said, grinning across at his friend, a teasing glint in his eye.

  ‘I mean what could possibly come from courting trouble. And, believe me, Miss Indigo Wallace would be trouble.’ And that was the understatement of the year. He rubbed at the sweat that had begun to collect on the back of his neck. ‘We shall do our duty and leave this place just as we have left every other place we have ever ventured to.’

  ‘You don’t have to marry a girl to have a good time, Will,’ George said raising his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

  ‘I guess that depends on the type of lady you wish to be involved with.’

  ‘Well, by your standards, a lady should not be trifled with unless you are committed to her and you do not wish to marry. So what option does that leave?’

  Will scowled but said no more.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to take a look at this Miss Margaret’s place she mentioned,’ George said, a wry smile touching his lips. ‘To be sure it is of a good health standard only of course.’

  Will gave his friend a sidelong glance before he laughed heartily.

  Chapter 5

  Indy stepped out of her tent and into the cool morning. No frost, she noted. Winter had done its best to hold on through September
, but finally they were beginning to get a taste of spring. She hefted the empty canvas water bags onto her shoulder and began the long walk to the river that ran beside Black Hill.

  Sanitation had long been a problem in the campsites around the diggings. The closer creeks and rivers were becoming more and more polluted now that the Ballarat camps were full to overflowing with humans. People hadn’t wanted to venture far for their ablutions during the harshness of the winter, and so the waterways nearby were foul with human excrement and food scraps. The uneducated folk still bathed in and drank from those waterways, but Indy knew better. She would happily take the walk upstream each morning to fetch their drinking water if it meant avoiding the wealth of diseases on offer in that lower creek. Dysentery and typhus were the biggest killers in camp. Childbirth came in a close third.

  As she hiked the small incline along the bottom of Black Hill, she couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering across the field to the cemetery; the scattering of makeshift crosses a sad reminder of the overwhelming loss of life on the goldfields. More than half of the crosses marked the resting place of children. Giving birth in an unhygienic tent in the pouring rain was hard enough. If you could afford a doctor to preside over the birth, you may be lucky enough to survive it. Of course, that depended upon whether the man was an actual doctor with the proper training or just an opportunist who had hung out a shingle, claiming to be a doctor for the shillings the occupation could charge. Midwives were scarce and cost money too. What didn’t cost on the goldfields? Most women were left to fend for themselves as they struggled to bring their offspring into the world.

  Indy shuddered as she recalled a night a few months back when one of the women in the Irish camp had laboured for almost twenty hours, finally giving birth to a son. Tragically, the baby boy had died less than an hour after his arrival. He had been the woman’s sixth child and all six had died either in the womb, during birth or before they had reached their second birthday. During the funeral service for the boy, she’d watched the woman stare blankly, as though in a daze, at the hole in the ground where the tiny wooden box was finally lowered. Had the poor woman finally lost her mind?