The Pool of St. Branok (34 page)

“I think you are mad, Ben.”

“Yes … mad for you, Angel. I knew it would be like this between us as soon as you stepped off that ship. I thought of you often … but as a little girl. I was attracted then … I knew there was something between us … and when I saw you again I was sure of it.”

“We should not be talking like this.”

“My dear Angel, you are not in your parents’ drawing room now. Are you going to let life buffet you which way it wants to?”

“I am married to Gervaise. I love Gervaise. I will never leave him. He is a good man. He is kind and he has been good to me.”

“You will always be at the mercy of his obsession with gambling. Believe me, I know. I have seen this sort of situation before. It mustn’t happen to you, Angel.”

“And you? Are you not obsessed? You vowed to make a fortune and you say you will not leave here until you do. Isn’t that rather the same?”

“No. I am going to. … He never will.”

“How do you know? He might strike gold tomorrow.”

“Suppose he does? Suppose he goes home? I guarantee that he would lose the lot in a very short time. A couple of years … perhaps three. That’s the pattern of a gambler’s life.”

“I do not want to talk like this, Ben.”

“I never sit down and accept defeat,” he told me vehemently. “We were meant for each other. Never forget that.”

“It is foolish to talk in this way.”

“It is truthful. I love you. I want you. One day we shall be together.”

As he spoke he picked up a handful of earth and let it slip through his fingers. “I’ll find what I seek in this land,” he went on. “And one day you and I will be together.”

I said: “We must go back now. I don’t want to leave Morwenna too long. Look at your hands. What do you expect, playing with the soil like that?”

He looked towards the creek and said: “I’ll wash them in there.”

I watched him, as he knelt by the creek, and I tried hard to subdue the disturbance he had created in me.

He was right. I loved him. I knew that full well now. I doubted his faults were any less than those of Gervaise; but his would be the faults of strength; Gervaise’s those of weakness. Gervaise acted not because he wanted to but because the weakness in him made him submit to his obsession; Ben acted through strength and the certainty that the world was made for him. What was there to choose? From a point of morality … nothing. It was a matter of strength and weakness. But what sense was there in making comparisons? Love came without being bidden. One did not really love for that sort of reason.

He was a long time at the creek. I saw him dabbling his hands in the water. I rose and, going to my horse, untethered it and mounted. I must get back to Morwenna.

He seemed reluctant to leave the creek.

“I’m going now,” I called.

He rubbed his hands on his coat as he turned.

He was very quiet and seemed to be deep in thought as we rode back to the house.

He is regretting his outspokenness, I thought. He is realizing that he should never have said what he did.

I was glad he had, though. It was a warning to me. In view of those feelings he had expressed for me and mine for him, I should have to take care.

The next day there was excitement throughout the township.

One-Eye Thompson and Tom Cassidy had found gold—not just a speck or two but the real thing.

One-Eye—so called for obvious reasons, but no one seemed to know how he had lost his right eye—was a man who did not mingle very much with his fellows. He lived in a shack which he shared with his partner, Tom Cassidy; they were usually a taciturn pair, and they were rarely at the saloon unless it was to drink a mug of ale and then depart immediately afterwards.

They had worked steadily and, until this time, without success.

The news spread rapidly. If someone had found gold in any quantity it could mean that there were still rich alluvial deposits in the neighborhood. Hope ran like a fire through the settlement.

One-Eye had little to say but Cassidy could not contain his joy.

“It’s come at last,” he said. “We’re made. Soon it will be Home for us … millionaires.”

Feverishly they worked raising the wash-dirt from the bottom of their shaft, then taking it to the stream to be panned … that the dross might be separated from the precious gold.

Everyone was talking of One-Eye’s and Cassidy’s luck. There was no other topic of conversation.

For three days they worked furiously turning out the gold. But it did not last. It ceased as suddenly as it had begun.

“Never mind,” said Cassidy. “Our fortunes are made.”

It was going to be Home for them.

The gold was in bags ready to be taken to Melbourne. There it would be valued; and there was no doubt that they had become rich men overnight.

As was the custom when anyone, as they said, “struck it rich,” there was a celebration throughout the town.

The successful partners would be hosts to the entire community. There would be a roasted sheep; it would be out-of-doors. There would be dancing and singing for when one man experienced such luck it stressed the fact that this could happen to any of them. It was the whole meaning of the life; it brought fresh optimism to the site for everyone knew that if someone had found leads to a “jeweler’s shop” there must be others.

“Gold will be as plentiful as it had been in fifty-one,” they said. “It is just that it is farther down and more difficult to find.”

I remember that occasion well. The excitement was intense. It was impossible not to be part of it. Even One-Eye expressed his jubilation; Cassidy was obviously in a state of bliss.

Gervaise was delighted. “Theirs today and ours tomorrow,” he said. “Soon we’ll be out of this place. There’s gold there. You can smell it.”

“I have a feeling that we shall soon be lucky,” said Justin.

“Everyone has that feeling,” I told them. “I only hope it is true.”

The heat of the day was over; the night was pleasantly warm and the stars brilliant in the velvety sky … the Southern Cross to remind us that we were far from home. Fires were lighted for roasting the meat. Dampers were cooking in the ashes. It seemed that everyone in the town was assembled.

“You will see,” Ben told us, “how a really big find is celebrated here. After months of depression when people begin to feel that the good days have gone forever, someone has a find like this and hope springs up.”

I could see that there was a change in him. He too was deeply affected by this find. He had the gold fever as intensely as any of them.

Gervaise was in specially high spirits.

“Just think,” he said. “It could have been us.”

“If only it had,” I sighed.

“If only …” repeated Justin.

They were two words which seemed to be in my mind a great deal lately. Ben’s confession had had a profound effect on me. I told myself I ought to get away. I felt unsure of myself.

Some of the men and women had begun to dance. Two of the men had brought violins with them and they were always in great demand. One of them had a very good singing voice.

It was a strange night. The light from the fires set a glow over the shacks endowing them with a mysterious quality they lacked by daylight.

Morwenna was of course not with us. She was not well enough and hourly we were expecting—and hoping—for the child to be born. We never left her alone. Always one of us was within call, holding herself in readiness. Meg was on duty at this moment and her husband with her. He would fetch Mrs. Bowles immediately if there was any sign of the child.

I was seated on the grass, Justin and Gervaise with me.

Gervaise was talking enthusiastically of the find. I knew that his desire to go home and his need to find gold were grappling with each other. I do believe that had it not been for the debt he owed Uncle Peter he would have wanted to leave by now. As Ben had said, it was easier to make money at the card tables in London’s Clubland than in the goldfields of Australia.

This find had probably made him change his view. “There must be more,” he kept saying. “It is like that. If you find traces it must mean that there is more not far off. It could be anywhere under this ground. We are going to find it. I know we are.”

“Soon, I hope,” I said.

“I heard a rumor,” said Justin, “that Ben Lansdon wants to buy land from James Morley. What do you think he plans to do? To graze sheep?”

Gervaise said: “He doesn’t seem like a grazier to me.”

“To open up another mine?”

“Why on Morley’s land?”

“Who knows? Do you think he has come to the conclusion that the present one is worked out?”

“There have been poor yields for some time.”

I thought: Yes, he has the gold fever as much as any of them. He will never give up any more than the others will.

I saw Ben among the crowd. With him were James Morley and Lizzie. Ben was talking animatedly to them. James was laughing and Lizzie smiling happily. She looked quite beautiful in the firelight with that lovely serene expression which seemed to indicate complete contentment.

They came over to us.

Ben took my hand and pressed it firmly.

“Well, what do you think of our jamboree?” he asked.

“Exciting,” I said. “The township looks different in the fire-and starlight.”

“It casts a rosy glow. I think One-Eye and Cassidy are very happy men tonight.”

“We shall miss them,” said Gervaise.

“Others will take their places, never fear.”

“And there will be more disappointments,” said James Morley. “I reckon it would do most of them more good to get hold of a piece of land and raise sheep and cattle.”

“They might not all have your success, James,” said Ben.

“They would if they worked. All this dig … dig … dig and perhaps there is just nothing at the end of it. It’s making a mess of good grazing land.”

“You have one aim in mind, James,” said Ben with a laugh. “Return to the land.”

“Yes, and give up this gimcrack notion. Gold there might be … but there is not enough to go round … and I say leave it be.”

“Yours certainly seems to be a happier way of life,” I said.

“You see before you one of the most successful graziers in Victoria,” said Ben. “Not all are so successful. And show me two happier men tonight than One-Eye and Cassidy.”

“They are happy,” I said, “because they are getting away from it.”

“But, darling,” put in Gervaise, “think of the joy of tilting your pan and seeing it there … and realizing that you have stumbled on it at last.”

“Yes,” I told him, “I can imagine how they feel. But how often does it happen?”

“Angelet is homesick,” said Gervaise.

“Aren’t we all?” asked Ben.

James Morley said, “Well, I’m not. I like to see my grassland. I like to see my sheep and my cattle. I wouldn’t want any of my land disturbed … and that’s a plain fact.”

“Not even if there were nuggets the size of your fists underneath it?” asked Gervaise.

“You’d have to show ’em to me first before I’d have one square foot of my land disturbed.”

“How would you know unless you looked?” I asked.

“That’s good reasoning. You wouldn’t, would you? Well, as far as I’m concerned it could stay there. I’m happy as I am. I don’t want anything to do with this Gold Rush. Look at all those people … dancing … singing. It’s like a scene from the Bible. Remember when they were all worshiping the golden calf.”

I went over to stand beside Lizzie.

She said: “Isn’t it pretty in this light? You can’t see how ugly it is in daylight.”

I agreed.

Someone started to sing. They were the old songs from Home which we knew so well: “Come, Lasses and Lads,” “On a Friday Morn When We Set Sail” and “Rule, Britannia.”

I saw many of them wipe a surreptitious tear from their eyes. They were songs which reminded them of Home.

Then Cassidy sang a song which I had never heard before. It was the song of the goldfield:

Gold, Gold, Gold

Bright and yellow, hard and cold,

Molten, graven, hammered and rolled,

Heavy to get and light to hold,

Price of many a crime untold …

There was silence among the crowd as his voice rang out clear on the night air. It had a sobering effect, coming after the songs which most of them had sung in their childhood. “Heavy to get and light to hold, Price of many a crime untold …”

Those words kept ringing in my ears.

I said to Gervaise: “I think I will go now. I don’t like leaving Morwenna.”

“There are people there to look after her.”

“Yes, but I am thinking of her all the time. I wish this baby would come.”

“I believe there are often delays like this.”

“Perhaps. We ought to have taken her to Melbourne. There is a hospital there.”

Gervaise said soothingly: “It will be all right. Don’t fret.”

“I’ll try not to, but I do want to see her.”

“I’ll take you back to the house.”

Ben had come up. “Are you going?” he asked.

“I keep thinking of Morwenna. I’m going to see her.”

“Can’t you trust Meg?”

“Yes, of course, but I’d like to be there.”

“I’ll walk you back. I was going anyway. Come on.”

“Good night, Gervaise,” I said.

He put his arms round me and kissed me.

“It will be nice when you are back,” he said.

“It will be soon, I hope. This can’t go on.”

The walk to Golden Hall was not very long. Ben said: “I wanted to talk to you.”

I waited.

“Something has to happen,” he went on. “Soon.”

“Such as what?”

“About everything. The way we are going. I want you to leave Gervaise and come to me.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Just that. You love me. You were never really in love with Gervaise.”

“You are talking nonsense, Ben. We met long ago and now we have met again briefly. How much do we know of each other?”

“A great deal. We shared an experience … once. I have thought of you ever since. Have you thought of me?”

“After that experience you went away. You left me.”

“If I had thought you needed me I should never have gone.”