Haunted Creek (19 page)

‘I was there when one of them shot a Ganai woman,’ Rose reminded him fiercely. ‘They deserve all they get.’ Because of that action, she would probably never see the Ganai again.

‘Unfortunately, the young woman died. I know you will be sad to hear it. The clan is after them and so are the police by now. That makes Haunted Creek a safer place for women and children, of course.’

‘Poor Sal … she lost her baby and now she is gone.’ This was another case of bad luck, of being in the wrong place. Rose felt like weeping for Sal. With an effort she asked, ‘So you think of distilling?’

‘Haunted Creek is the perfect place for a eucalyptus plant,’ Lordy said happily. ‘Just down there on your land you could fit one
in. You have to pack the leaves into the vat with a tank of water underneath it. A fire is lit under the water tank and the steam filters through the leaves and takes out the eucalyptus oil with it.’

By this time Rose was wondering whether this would be a good business venture for her. Once you had a vat, the materials were free, although she would have to employ men for the cutting. ‘But why Haunted Creek? There are gum leaves all over Victoria.’ She waved a hand towards the vast tracts of forest that lay between them and the mountains.

‘Ah, then to get the oil you need to pass the steam through pipes submerged in cool water … hence the creek. An ingenious system … invented by an Englishman, of course,’ Lordy finished.

After some minutes Rose said doubtfully, ‘Would you really like to start up a plant down there, Jasper, on my land?’ It would mean more people, probably rough men, and carts coming and going. The peace would be shattered.

Rose suddenly realized that she didn’t miss village life any more. The peace of their little clearing was precious to her. This place had changed her, but what would she become? Ada would grow up and need to go away, to live her own life. What then?

Rose noticed that Lordy was looking at her. ‘I think not. It would change the nature of your property. The peace here has been so good for me, Rose. Even though my house is not far from here, it’s not a bit like this. The gold field is a busy place, men coming and going all the time. Besides, I hope to marry Maeve and then she will choose what we do next.’

By now it was early autumn and the weather was fine and mild. One afternoon Rose was working among the vegetables and looked up to find a woman standing over her. ‘Good day,’ she said politely. Was this a new customer for produce? The woman’s golden hair shone in the sun and her tightly fitting bodice was cut rather lower than was the custom in Haunted Creek. The way she thrust out her bosom made it more obvious.

‘Oh, I – er …’ The woman seemed surprised to see Rose. ‘I’m
actually looking for Mr Teesdale, Luke Teesdale. This is his
property
, I believe?’ She looked at Rose’s shabby black dress and added, ‘He’s a particular friend of mine.’

‘Y
OU’RE A FARM
servant, I suppose?’ The woman looked down her nose, although she was not very tall. Rose looked hard at Luke’s ‘particular friend’. What did she mean by that? The sound of hammering came from the hut, where Lordy was finishing off the floor, working slowly and cautiously as instructed. ‘Perhaps he’s in there, is he?’ She took a few little steps towards the hut and Rose noticed that her pointed shoes were not going to get her very far down the Haunted Creek.

‘I’m afraid not.’ Rose stood straighter and pushed back her hair. ‘Luke died some years ago … I am his widow. What did you want with him?’

The woman’s eyes widened, looking into Rose’s stare. ‘Luke dead!’ She shook her head. ‘Widow? Surely … he said he wasn’t married, he wasn’t the marrying kind. Poor Luke. I don’t know why he chose to bury himself up here.’ She gave a sob that sounded like acting, but it might have been real. ‘He was popular in Moe, a wonderful card player … you could call him a ladies’ man. You look surprised, darling. Surely you knew that?’

Were they talking about the same man? Surely there couldn’t be two Luke Teesdales in the area. Rose had an unreal feeling as she tried to come to terms with the idea that Luke was not the simple country lad she’d thought him to be.

‘Come on, tell me it’s not true. You’re just trying to keep him to yourself.’ The woman looked round as if expecting Luke to step out from behind a tree.

Rose was seething by now but she held herself in. She had never met a woman like this before. There had been women on the ship who were quite openly looking for a man, preferably a husband, but they were good natured. ‘Why are you looking for him now? It must be years since you knew Luke.’ Six long years since he died, and before that – how had she known him?

The visitor looked her up and down from eyes outlined heavily in black. ‘You don’t look his type, somehow. Not a very big bust and you’re rather thin, that’s strange. Luke always had an eye for the plump girls, the devil.’ She sighed. ‘Well, well. This spoils my plans. I never expected him to go and die on me.’ She turned away, patting her fair hair.

‘What were your plans?’ Rose couldn’t help asking, just as she couldn’t help looking down at her bust. She was thinner now after her years of work in the sun, but it was still there in a modest sort of way.

‘You might not like it, if you really are his wife.’ She was good at insults. ‘It must be about eight years ago now. Luke was boarding in Moe before he came up here and I worked in the boarding house.’ She giggled. ‘We spent our spare time together. Had some good times, but then I got pregnant. My name’s Maudie, by the way.’ She pushed out her bosom as if proud of her charms.

Rose walked over to a bench and sat down suddenly, feeling faint. Could she believe this story? ‘So – why did you wait so long to look for Luke again?’

The woman sat down beside Rose on the bench and arranged her skirts. ‘Well, we sort of drifted apart for a time. He had plenty of choice, of course. All the girls wanted Luke. When Luke got the land I didn’t see him quite so much, only when he came into town. He came when he could and we always had a good time then – he was a bit of a devil, wasn’t he? But then the baby happened. Baby was going to be a problem.’

‘I see.’ Rose looked round at the home she’d shared with Luke, a stranger. She had thought he didn’t like women much because he
was so casual with his wife. He’d obviously enjoyed himself with women in Moe, until she had arrived and spoiled his fun.

Maudie nodded. ‘I did think of getting rid of it, but just at that time another bloke offered for me and he was comfortably off, like – an older bloke, you see. Luke had said he didn’t want to wed so I went off with Alfred to Bendigo. I had a little boy, Lucas I called him. Alfred thought the baby was his – right proud he was.’

Rose waited; the story was not over yet. How could Luke do this when he was already married? While she was waiting to join him, then travelling from the other side of the world, Luke had a mistress, or perhaps more than one. This might be why the progress on the house had been so slow.

‘We had a good time in Bendigo, but poor Alfred died of a bad heart. My folks are in Moe, so I came back last week. It’s a bit of a backwater, you might say, after Bendigo. And then I thought, why not look for Luke? I don’t need his money, you understand, just his company in bed at night. Naturally, I won’t live out of town, but I thought of persuading him to join me, put a manager on the farm, something like that.’ She looked round at the farm. ‘Not that it looks that sort of a place, I suppose.’

‘So you thought that Luke might want to take up with you again? Rather hopeful, wasn’t it? You must be a fair bit older than him, I should think.’ Rose thought that might silence her, but the woman only laughed.

‘Bitchy, aren’t you? Don’t worry, Luke liked a woman with a bit of experience. And he might like … he might have wanted to see little Lucas. His son.’

Luke had a son, now living in Moe. Ada had a half-brother. How strangely things had turned out. But Luke had been indifferent to Ada – maybe a son would have been better. Why didn’t the woman go away? Rose stood up, hoping to end the interview.

Maudie settled herself more comfortably on the bench. ‘Come and sit down, missus. Now, tell me the truth. Are you sure he’s dead? I can’t believe it. Luke always got himself out of trouble. He
wasn’t one to lose a fight or have an accident. Did you see him in his coffin? Did you have a funeral? What happened, anyway? You haven’t told me yet.’

‘I have a death certificate, although it’s none of your business. He was killed by a falling tree. Now I think you should leave. I’m not going to tell you anything else.’ Rose glared.

The woman laughed. ‘Don’t look at me like that. It happens here, you know. Blokes, and some women too, they go off and start again somewhere else. Convicts bail out when they’ve done their time and why not, but many a bloke has deserted after a blue with his missus.’

‘You must know some strange people.’ This was an underworld Maudie lived in, a place of lies and broken promises.

‘It’s life, me dear. I expect in England it’d be a bit hard to run off, with all the parish knowing your business. But Australia’s a big country, you can lose yourself easy if you want to. Go down to Port Albert and step on a boat, nobody sees you leave. The mail coach – well, that’s a bit more public, but if you go east it’s easier. There’s a lot of country the other side of Sale and then you’re on the road to Sydney.’ Looking round her she added, ‘I wouldn’t blame Luke if he got sick of living on the land. It would be just like him to fake his death and go off to the city.’ She laughed heartily; Maudie thought it was a good joke.

A dreadful doubt struck Rose like a hammer. She had not seen the body, or the funeral. She’d seen a cross in a cemetery and been given a piece of paper, supposedly signed by a doctor. The death certificate was blurred, almost unreadable because Tom had packed it in his pocket with some bread and cheese. There had been no reason to question either Tom or Jim about the details and at the time, she’d been too shocked.

She had certainly not wanted the details of his horrific injuries.

‘You have an evil mind. I think you have made all this up to annoy me.’

Maudie snorted with laughter. ‘Made you think, though, didn’t
I?’ Leaning forward, her bosom nearly falling out of her dress, she whispered, ‘I just might be right. Luke might be living it up in Sydney, missus.’

Rose backed away, repelled by the woman’s nearness. But she had been clever enough to plant a doubt, a niggling thought in the mind. What if shrewd, worldly Maudie was right and Luke was still alive? In that case, she wasn’t even a widow. Just a deserted wife. Why had they not come to fetch her for the funeral? In a few minutes, Luke’s mistress had changed her view of the world. She had changed Rose’s memories of Luke for ever.

Rose wanted to be alone, to digest this story. ‘How did you get here?’ She really meant to find out how the woman would leave; she was obviously not a walker.

Maudie smiled complacently. ‘I hired a lad to drive me out from town. He’s waiting for me up the track. I told him to leave us alone, we might be having a reunion. I’d planned it, you see. Luke would have been so excited to see me. The visit could have taken several hours. What a disappointment it’s been! Only you here and this miserable shack.’ She stood up and moved off. ‘Terrible road, isn’t it? I wouldn’t live here for quids. Well, I won’t trouble you again.’

As she got to the track, Maudie turned back. ‘I’ll check up your story, just to make sure it’s true. You might want me to think Luke’s gone, mightn’t you?’ She cackled. ‘Or … he might have wanted you to think so. You’ll have to live with it.’

Silently Rose let her go, the first visitor not to be offered
hospitality
. The hut, the garden, everything looked shabby to her, tainted by Maudie’s view of the world. She sank down again on the bench.

‘I say, are you feeling under the weather, my dear?’ Lordy was looking down at her with concern.

Rose felt numb with shock, but Lordy’s cheerful scarred face reminded her it was time for a cup of tea. She would have to get used to this news gradually. For now, she would live in the present, enjoy the tea and the peace of Haunted Creek.

That night the floor was finished and the huts put to rights.
They all went to bed tired and to her surprise, Rose slept well. The next morning she got up at dawn and bathed in the creek, carefully washing her long dark hair.

Lordy was boiling the billy for breakfast when she got back and Ada was dressing herself, as she had learned to do. Rose went into the hut and shut the door. The sharp smell of new wood met her and she smiled; the place was transformed. She would buy a mat when she next went into town.

The new floor was a sign of her new life. Rose opened the cabin trunk and shook out her old dresses. She chose a blue one and hung it in the sun to get out the creases. In the old black dress she walked with Ada to the school, but when she got back she changed to the blue one.

Lordy seemed not to notice the coloured dress; he was busy making something with the ends of wood. Her choice of black had been practical, after all. Many country folk wore black to work in and she had not stood out as unusual, except that she’d never worn anything else. Rose had been true to Luke’s memory, had worn mourning for all these years, and now it was time to take another look at her life.

It was true, I didn’t know Luke at all
. He loved company, he was sociable. She had assumed at one time that he didn’t like women, but now she went back in memory to their village life in Kirkby. Luke was a very good quoits player and helped Kirkby to win matches against Thorpe. There was a standing joke in Kirkby that the Thorpe girls always turned out to watch and that they arranged assignments with the quoits players. It was probably true.

So this Maudie had relieved Luke’s loneliness in Moe. No wonder he was surprised when his wife turned up. He’d probably seen Maudie that very day! Rose blushed as she wondered whether her neighbours knew about her.

Even worse than a liaison with Maudie was the thought that Luke might have ‘bailed out’, left her to fend for herself with a baby in Haunted Creek.

There was no time for sitting and thinking on the farm. The next day Rose delivered her produce to the Wattle Tree store and called to see Freda as she sometimes did, timing her call for the school’s mid-morning break.

Freda, as always, was pleased to see her. They admired the garden for a while and then Freda made a pot of tea. Pouring the tea she said, ‘That dress is pretty, Rose. It’s good to see you out of black at last.’

Rose sighed. ‘I thought it was time for a change. Now, Freda, I’ve got a hard question for you. Tell me, did you know what Luke got up to in Moe before I came out?’

Freda sat at the table and folded her arms. ‘We often wondered whether you should be told. It was hard to know, Rose. He had several women friends in Moe, Erik knew that. But we assumed that once you were here, he would settle down.’

‘So everybody knew?’

‘Not the newcomers, people like the Carrs, although Bert might have heard something in Moe. Poor Rose, somebody has told you a tale, have they?’ Freda pushed a plate of scones across the table but Rose was not hungry.

Rose told the story Maudie had given her but Freda knew little. ‘That was why Erik didn’t like Luke,’ Freda explained. ‘He knew that Luke had been cheating.’

Rose changed the subject and drank her tea, then stood up. ‘The donkey will be getting impatient, I’d better go,’ she said. It was the wrong time to ask where Erik was and whether he was married, although she was sure she would have heard about a wedding at Wattle Tree.

As they walked through the garden to where Dougal waited beside the rail, Freda said rather awkwardly, ‘How is Mr Barrington?’

Rose blushed and that made her feel even more embarrassed. ‘He’s recovering very well. I … found him badly injured and have been nursing him. I gather that Ada has told you all about it.’

‘You can’t have secrets where children are about, Rose,’ Freda said lightly.

‘There’s no secret, Freda. None at all.’

Jim Carlyle lived on the block he had ‘stolen’ from the Carrs, or so they still believed. Rose had never called there but today she turned in at the gate and walked down the track with Dougal. Jim was coming towards her with a pony and trap. ‘Rose! What brings you here?’ Grinning from ear to ear, he jumped down to talk to her. Dougal and the pony eyed each other warily.

There was no time for small talk; better to come straight to the point. ‘Jim, a woman called Maudie came to see me yesterday. Do you know her?’ Rose looked up at him, wanting the truth.

‘Er … well, yes. Luke knew her before you came here, Rose, but he didn’t see her once you were here. I don’t think.’ Jim took off his broad-brimmed hat and wiped his brow. ‘Don’t let it worry you, girl. It’s a long time ago.’ He looked very uncomfortable.

So far, so good. The next one might be harder. ‘Did Luke really die in the forest? You only told me when it was all over, remember? Is it possible that he went off somewhere else?’ Rose’s lip trembled but she went on doggedly. ‘I have a right to know.’ Dougal was trying to give the pony a nip and Rose walked him up the track a little way.