A Greater World (19 page)

Verity was unstoppable now, relieved to be on what she thought was safer ground. 'I'd be joining the queue myself, but I don't delude myself that a fine man like him would be interested in an old maid like me.' She gave a dry laugh. 'And after my Bernard there can never be anyone else.' Her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. 'Mind you. Hattie's not immune.'

'What are you talking about?' Elizabeth's stomach churned.

'He's a little old for her, but that's not always such a bad thing. My Bernard was quite a bit older than me. And she does seem to have taken to him. What do you think? I'm sure Mr Kidd would be delighted for Harriet to marry a young man like him.'

'Marry him? That's preposterous! Harriet's barely eighteen. He's almost twice her age. It's a ridiculous notion.' Her voice was sharp and she tasted bile in her throat.

Verity Radley saw at once she had upset her hostess. 'You're quite right, Elizabeth. What was I thinking? It's a schoolgirl crush. It will pass.'

'If it's a crush at all.' There was frost in Elizabeth's voice now. 'You must be reading too many silly, romantic novels.'

The schoolteacher blushed to the roots of her hair. Seeing her crestfallen expression, Elizabeth softened and smiled. 'I'm sorry – I didn't mean to be cruel. It's that headache again. I am out of sorts today. I definitely need an early night. Please forgive me.'

With a sigh of relief, the older woman nodded and the two of them turned their attention back to the small child playing on the rug.

Working alongside Will was the bright spot in Michael's life at the mine. The boy was intelligent and personable and Michael couldn't help but like him. Will introduced him to the beauty of the area surrounding McDonald Falls. In their free time, Will took to calling at Michael's lodgings and the two would wander happily and aimlessly, along the rim of the gorge, exploring the rugged sandstone escarpments, the narrow rivers and the dense forests of eucalyptus. Weathered rock formations rose through the vegetation in an often spectacular landscape of gorges, caves, and deep canyons.

'The aborigines made up crazy stories about these rocks. They thought they were people or animals and got frozen into those shapes. They reckoned the sun was a campfire made by some kidnapped girl who was put in the sky by her ancestor spirits.'

'How do you know all this stuff, Will?'

'Used to be an old black fella lived in the bush near our place at Wilton's Creek. When I was little I used to sneak off and go hunting with him. He told me how the earth was made by the great rainbow snake.'

'You're joking, mate? A bloody snake?'

'No the abos really believe it. The rainbow snake made the world. It's meant to have the head of a kangaroo, the tail of a croc and the body of a python. It brings the rain. It made all the rivers and the mountains and the animals and the humans. When it gets angry or when people do bad things it sends storms and floods to punish us. There are some rock paintings a few miles from here – I'll take you and show you. The stories go back gazillions of years.'

These trips into the bush with Will were a welcome release from the gloom of the mine and the darkness of Michael's thoughts. On entering the pit, he threw himself into the day's tasks with a blind energy, seeking oblivion in the ritual of hard, physical work. Although in a supervisory role, he still undertook a lot of manual labour, preferring to bring on the exhaustion that led to sleep at the end of the day. This, as well as his stand against Robinson, earned him the respect of the other men.

Harriet was standing in the open doorway to the garden, her back to the room.

'Harriet, we need to talk.' Elizabeth tried not to sound nervous or desperate, but knew she was not succeeding. The girl was barely eighteen but her frosty manner and air of superiority made Elizabeth feel like a naughty child.

'What do we have to talk about?'

Elizabeth took a deep breath. 'We would like you to live here with us. Your education has finished and much as I know Miss Radley enjoys your company, it's better that you live here with the rest of the family.'

'The family!' she snarled scornfully. 'I hope you're not including yourself and your brat in that description!'

'Harriet, please. There's no need to be unpleasant. Mikey has done nothing to deserve that.'

'If my father wants something he asks me. What I do has nothing to do with you. Where I live is none of your business. You're not my mother.'

'I know I'm not your mother, but I want the best for you. I don't understand why you're behaving this way towards me.'

The girl turned to face her stepmother. 'I can't help it that Pa has married you, though I don't understand why. He should have been able to tell you're a fortune hunter. It's obvious. There's no other reason you'd have married him. You may have snared him in your trap but you'll have nothing to do with me or where I choose to live. I'm staying with Miss Radley and that's final.'

She flounced through the doorway and into the garden, leaving a shaken Elizabeth staring after her.

A few hours later, Elizabeth was practising her violin: struggling to reacquaint herself with a difficult passage from Elgar's Enigma Variations, when Mrs Oates showed Verity Radley into the room. They greeted each other warmly, then Elizabeth refused Verity's request that she continue to play.

'It's quite enough for today. It wasn't going well anyway. I'm so out of practice that it will be a while before I let anyone hear me play, even you, dear Verity! Now come and sit down and have some tea.'

'I'm sorry to arrive unannounced, Elizabeth, but I understand Harriet had words with you this morning?'

'She told you?'

'Very little. Just that you asked her to move to Kinross House but she wants to stay at the School House. I've told her I think it's better for her to be at home with her family, but...'

'But she told you she had no intention of living with a greedy fortune hunter?'

Miss Radley blushed and looked away.

Elizabeth continued. 'I suppose that's what everyone in McDonald Falls thinks of me, isn't it?'

'Of course not!' Verity was indignant.

'Come on Verity. It's not surprising.'

'There'll always be some ignorant people who'll speak badly of others, but anyone who knows you well, Elizabeth, would never dream of imputing such motives to you.'

'I'm not daft, Verity. Harriet may hate me but I imagine she's not the only person who wonders how my husband and I came to marry?'

'There were one or two people who had their noses put out of joint by your marrying Mr Kidd. He may not be in the first flush of youth but there's many saw him as quite a catch.'

Elizabeth raised both eyebrows. How could anyone seriously harbour a desire to marry an ugly old man with a bad temper, an absence of manners and an inability to communicate? To her, marriage for personal advancement was an alien concept. She had not lacked money during childhood and early adulthood and had been oblivious to the advances of many a wealthy suitor until she accepted Stephen. Charles Dawson exemplified for her the worst qualities of the fortune hunter, although even in his case, she had to acknowledge that her sister had been a more than willing participant in the marriage.

'You must have wondered why we were married away from McDonald Falls and only moved here when I was expecting Mikey?'

Verity blushed. 'Yes, I suppose so. But Mr Kidd never discusses family matters with anyone else, and he was in Sydney so often over the recent years. I presumed he was lonely after the first Mrs Kidd passed away.'

'Mr Kidd was a friend of my late father.' She swallowed as she forced the words out. 'It was Father's wish that we marry. When he died, I felt obliged to comply with what was effectively his last wish. His death was sudden and I'd no one else. Mr Kidd offered me a future.' She paused for a moment looking at Verity, trying to read her reaction, then carried on. 'He has been good to me.'

Verity placed her hand on hers. Elizabeth carried on speaking. 'Tell me about the first Mrs Kidd. I don't like to ask my husband about her.'

'I barely knew her. She never lived in town. It was before Mr Kidd bought the mine. They lived out at Wilton's Creek and Mrs Kidd only came in once or twice a year. I asked her to send Nathaniel and Harriet to the school here but she and her husband preferred for her to school them at home. She said they couldn't afford to pay the fees. Mr Kidd was just a smallholder then, scratching a living in the bush. They were both from humble backgrounds. She was born around here, the only child of a labourer in the bauxite mine. I don't know where Mr Kidd was from, but he was a good ten years older than her.'

'How did she die?'

'She lost several children, one or two stillborn between her elder son and Harriet, then two or three more after Will. She was frail. When she was expecting another child she was taken ill in the influenza epidemic and died along with the unborn child.'

'How dreadful.'

'Indeed. She was close to term. Will was only eleven. Mr Kidd was away when it happened. The two younger children were at home with Mrs Kidd and Will went on his pony to fetch the doctor but it was too late. She was gone by the time he arrived.'

'So Harriet was alone with her when she died?'

'Yes, poor girl. She was out of her mind with grief and guilt. She felt she had not done enough to help her mother. All nonsense of course. The doctor said there was nothing anyone could have done for the woman, including him.'

'Poor Harriet.'

'When Mr Kidd returned he was in a rage. He cursed everyone. After that he drank a lot and became the way he is now. Before then I gather he was quite a cheerful man. Used to sing. Always had a friendly word for folk. Not after she died, though. Who can blame him?'

'Did he blame himself for not being there?'

'Who knows? Given Mrs Kidd's history and fragility, perhaps he did regret leaving her. But what was he to do? He had to make a living and the baby wasn't due for another month. Life in the outback can be hard. Susanna Kidd wasn't the first and I daresay won't be the last young woman from round here to die before her time.'

After Verity left, Elizabeth couldn't stop thinking about the death of Susanna Kidd and the grief, guilt and anger it must have caused in father and daughter. Maybe she was too harsh in her antipathy towards the girl, but the story did little to abate her hostility towards her husband.

Chapter Fourteen – Pit Fall

Will was never going to fit in at the Black Water Colliery. As the boss's son, the men treated him with suspicion, fearing he was his father's eyes and ears. After a few months, when they saw that Jack Kidd showed no favours to his own son and that Winterbourne, whom they all liked and respected, was clearly fond of the lad, they showed him grudging acceptance. He wasn't sure which was worse: being cold-shouldered or being the butt of their jokes. He sensed that his workmates knew he was afraid of the mine and that as, a result, he'd never really be one of them.

Michael understood how he felt. Not the fear, but the dislike of being down the pit. The Englishman had worked underground all of his adult life so, while he hated it, he didn't fear it. For Will though, every time he stepped into the metal cage and heard the winder and the ironbark beams creak as the cage descended into the shaft, a wave of nausea swept over him despite his empty stomach.

The men didn't eat much below ground: just some bread and jam, washed down with water. Eating too much heavy food gave them heartburn – no fun when crawling along the tunnels or bent double, hacking at the rock face. Will hated the way his feet got wet, no matter how well he fastened his boots or how thick his socks were. If it wasn't the surface water, it was his own sweat.

Michael was working with them underground today. He liked the spirit of the men and the sense of belonging and the misery of the pit was preferable to sitting in the office with Robinson and his snide comments. Seeing Michael walk towards the cage instantly cheered Will: the shift was more bearable when his friend was beside him.

They were working in a detail of half a dozen men, with a couple of pit horses to help haul the rock back to the base of the main shaft. The mine wasn't fully mechanized and there were dozens of horses employed. The animals never saw the light of day again once they went down into the pit. They were stabled underground. Moving them back to the surface was too much of a logistical complexity to be considered except in emergency. Accustomed only to the dark underworld, they would be uncontrollable if brought to the surface. The prevailing philosophy was that what they'd never known they wouldn't miss. Each horse worked with one designated miner, a bond of trust growing between them.

Will loved the horses. Compared to them, his own plight seemed trivial. At least he got to return to the surface at the end of his shift and had days off to enjoy the sunshine and breathe clean air. So he spent time at the beginning and end of each shift talking to the animals and feeding them the odd carrot when he could avoid the eyes of the miners who partnered them. He was hoping that before long he too would be assigned a horse to care for. The role of pit pony minder was not one trusted to rookies but after a while he hoped to convince Michael to give him a chance. There was no point asking his father.

They were half way through the shift when the two horses started whinnying and refused to move forward.

Michael pushed his way through. 'Move back down the tunnel, lads. Take it slowly. Don't raise yer voices. Be careful.'

As he spoke, there was a rumbling noise and a section of the tunnel roof collapsed in front of them, covering one of the men and his pony with rubble. Thick dust and debris surrounded them all, blinding them and bringing on violent coughing. The electric lights were pulled down by the roof fall. Michael took control, calling out instructions in the darkness.

'Kelly, take the other horse back and get it stabled. Eddie, go back up and bring torches and another crew to help. Tell them to bring some props so we can shore up the roof once we've got Jim and the horse out. Will and Rod, help me shift this lot.'

Michael, Will and the other miner worked in concert. The dust was choking and it was hard to see what was happening in the darkness. No one spoke. They rolled away the last boulders and pulled the unconscious man from the rubble. His face was covered in blood and his left arm and leg were obviously broken, twisting away from his body in an unnatural angle. The shinbone had burst through the skin and stuck out in a jagged edge. Will tasted metal and realised he was going to be sick. He pushed Rod out of the way and threw up behind a pile of rubble. He watched, pale faced, as Michael splinted the legs and arm, using the shirt off his own back and some wood that been brought by the rescue party. As Eddie and a few other men from the other shift carefully carried the man back along the tunnel in a stretcher, Will hoped Michael had not seen him vomiting.

'He should be all right if they can get him to the doctor quickly and the wound's not infected. Now let's get this pony out,' said Michael.

The horse was not so lucky. The animal had taken the full force of the collapse. One of its hind legs was crushed under a wooden roof beam. It was crying in pain and confusion and struggling with the impossible task of pulling itself upright. With its handler gone, it was clearly distressed and Will lay down on the rubble beside it, stroking it and trying to calm it, as the poor creature vainly attempted to rear up. Its pain was evident and its screams visceral. Michael called back down the tunnel behind him.

'Get a vet or a doctor. This horse has to be put down.'

'No!' Will looked at him in anguish.

'She's in pain. She can't be fixed. It's not right that she should suffer.'

'I can't stand it. Not to just kill her in cold blood. Please!'

'I don't like it any more than you do, mate, but it's got to be done.'

A voice called through the darkness to them. 'Doc's gone with Wingo to the hospital. It'll take at least an hour to find the vet and get him out here.'

The pony was foaming at the mouth now and its eyes were rolling.

Michael called back 'Get me a detonator and some wire then – and some whisky - and make it quick.'

He turned to Will. 'Sorry, mate, it's got to be done. I need you to help. We have to get her as calm as possible. Can you hold her down? Lean on her neck so's I can get at the head. We need to do it fast and put the poor girl out of her misery.'

Will lay across the horse's neck, using the weight of his slight body to keep the horse from struggling against the rubble to get to its feet. Michael poured the whisky down its throat. Will began to whisper into the creature's ear and kept up a constant stroking of its neck and the pony began to calm a little.

'Look away, mate.' Michael pushed the detonator into the horse's ear and fired. As the shot rang out, a last spasm went through the animal, then it lay still.

Will blinked back his tears. It wouldn't do for the other men to see him crying. Especially over a pit horse. He looked at Michael. The older man had an expression that Will had not seen on his face before: a blankness, a cold determination, and a deadness about the eyes. He put his arm round the boy's shoulder and led him back to the main shaft. He called out orders to clear the rubble and the dead horse and shore up the tunnel, then turned to Will.

'Get yourself over to the Number 2 line and tell Watts to come over here. You take his place and help them load up the tubs.'

When the shift ended, Michael invited Will to join him in town for a beer. It was the first time he had done that. Will was not of an age to drink, but Michael passed him his schooner and put his hand on his shoulder.

'That were bad today, mate. You deserve a pint.'

'I hate it, Michael. I can't go back down. Please speak to Pa. Tell him I'm no good. I'm not cut out for the work. I can't stand it. The other men know it too. I can see them talking about me and how useless they think I am. I've tried. I've really tried but I can't take it any more. Today was the last straw.'

'I know, mate. It were a tough one. No one likes to see what we saw today or do what we 'ad to do. But we 'ad to do it. You see that don't you?'

'I know the horse had to die. But it doesn't make me like it.'

'Christ, mate do you think I did? No one loves animals more than me. I couldn't let her suffer. Not when there's no hope.'

'I know.'

'And if it helps, Will, I'd like to get away from the pit myself. That were the whole point of coming to Australia. I'd enough of tunnelling under the bloody ground – sixteen year I've done it and when I came out here it were to work on the land. I wanted to be a sheep farmer. Instead I'm still smashing rocks and splinting legs and now I'm killing bloody horses instead of riding them.'

'Why don't you leave then? I'm stuck here 'cause of the old man, but you could just bugger off.'

'Aye. I were going to, but he's given me another promotion this evening. Soon as I came up the shaft he were waiting and told me he's making me Deputy Manager – another couple of quid a week. I can't say no to that. Not when I'm trying to get enough to bring me folks out here – or at least enough for me Da to stop having to work. He's a miner too. Smelter. Bloody filthy job. And dangerous. Me Mam worries herself sick about him, so I reckon I just have to get on with it a while longer.' Then he smiled. 'And mebbe it were worth it to see the look on Robinson's face when yer Da told him I were to get more in me pay packet!'

Harriet stirred and stretched out on the bed, poking her toes through the bars of the bedstead.

Her friend Miranda perched on a chair beside her. 'That bed's too small for you. It's a child's bed. You've outgrown it, Hattie Long Legs. I can't understand why you won't go and live with your family in that huge house. I'd have thought you'd have had enough of school and Miss Verity Virgin by now.'

'Miss Radley's all right. Anything's better than being under the same roof as the Witch.

She swung her long legs off the bed, tucking her feet into her slippers. She examined her reflection in the mirror, frowning in irritation at the black spots where the mirror's silvering had worn away. Despite the mottled effect, she was satisfied with what she saw. Her long hair shone and her nose was straight with a slight retroussé upturn at the end. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, and her avoidance of the sun rewarded by a clear pale complexion. Not beautiful perhaps, but certainly pretty.

'It's so unfair that I'm shut away in the back of beyond in this town.' She added a theatrical groan.

Miranda joined her at the mirror so that they could talk to each other's reflections. 'Why not come to Sydney?'

Miranda had recently married her cousin's best friend and moved to Sydney, and had spent the best part of the morning regaling Harriet with stories of her life there.

'It's all very well for you, Randa; you've got a rich husband and a nice house. Here am I stuck in the schoolhouse like a no-hoper. It's not fair.'

'Stop sulking, Hat. You can always come and stay with us.'

'That'd make it worse. Then I'd really know what I'm missing.'

She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and looked into the mirror again.

'I'm going to get my hair shingled,' she said.

'Your hair's beautiful, Hat! Don't chop it off.'

'It'll really annoy Pa, Miss Radley will disapprove, and I'll look older and more sophisticated. If I can't get out of this dump, I may as well make my mark on it.'

She rummaged though a pile of magazines under the bed and pulled one out. 'What do you think of this? How would it look on me?'

'You wouldn't dare! It's frightfully short.'

'It's perfect. With a bit of luck, Lulu can copy the style.'

Miss Lu Yong ran the hairdressing salon behind the community hall.

Miranda giggled. 'You'll be the height of glamour, Hat. There's no one in the Falls with hair like that. Just like Gloria Swanson. Michael Winterbourne will be powerless to resist.'

Harriet snorted. 'That old man!'

'He's not that old and he's very handsome. Everyone's after him.'

'He's a Pom.'

'You're just peeved because he's never paid you any attention.'

She had to admit she had so far been frustrated in her attempts to catch Winterbourne's eye. Usually all she had to do was raise an eyebrow or lick a lip and the stupid young men in the town were putty in her hands. But Winterbourne was proving a tougher nut to crack. She had hoped, when he walked her back to the schoolhouse after that dreadful dinner, that he might pay her some attention instead of treating her as a child. She'd led him a dance that night, deliberately making herself hard to find, until there were was no risk of Miss Radley catching them up and tagging along for the trip. But she wasn't going to confess that to Miranda.

'He's paid me more attention than he has anyone else. He's just a miserable bloody pom.'

'Hattie, language!'

'It's true. He walked me home after supper in complete silence. He's as bad as my father.'

'You know how to get your own way with your Pa - a handsome man should be no trouble for a girl like you? If I weren't happily hitched to Robbie I'd make a play for him myself.'

'You'd be welcome to him.'

'Not just me. Half the town's got their eyes on him. I don't get you.'

'Actually I'm sure there's something going on between him and the Wicked Stepmother.'

'You're not suggesting..?'

'I'm sure they know each other. They're both from England. They turned up here within a couple of months of each other and I saw her talking to him outside the schoolhouse but she pretended she didn't know him when they were introduced at dinner.'