The Gold Seekers (11 page)

“Sure he must have hurled the poor mistress something cruel, for I heard her cry out. An’ she has not eaten all day, Miss Jenny. Just a few sips a’ de broth Cook made for her an’ she was tellin’ me to take it away. ‘I can’t fancy it,’ she said, but she t’anked me for taking it up to her, like she always does.”

Such courtesy, Jenny thought, was typical of her mother, who as a young girl had been in service herself, as lady’s maid to the wife of the late Governor Macquarie. Doubtless that was why she treated all her own servants with unfailing consideration, with the result that, like the weeping Biddy, they adored her.

“Perhaps if you prepare a tea tray, Biddy,” she suggested, “I’ll take it to her, and maybe I’ll be able to persuade her to eat a little.”

Biddy wiped her streaming eyes with a corner of her apron and hurried off to prepare the tray. She returned with it a few minutes later and, still tearful, indicated the extra cups she had set out.

“De master’s wid herself, Miss Jenny. I was t’inking he might take a cup.”

Perhaps he would, Jenny thought, conscious of a lump in her throat as she picked up the tray. Her mother’s illness was taking a terrible toll on her father; he tried to hide it, but he had taken to spending more time with her than he did at the shipyard, and for all his studied cheerfulness, Jenny could sense his anxiety as if it were a living thing, tearing him apart. She should not have left them, she reproached herself; she should have turned a deaf ear to William De Lancey’s blandishments and her mother’s urging. It was easier for both of them when she was there, but perhaps when her brother John returned from the assignment his paper had sent him on, they could devise some plan, between them, that would help improve matters.

Resting the laden tray on her hip, Jenny knocked on the door of her mother’s bedroom and went in.

Jessica Broome’s thin, pale face lit with a smile as, propped up on her pillows, she recognized her daughter.

“You’re back early, child—but the better for your outing, I trust. Did you enjoy yourself?”

Jenny set down the tray and bent to kiss her.

“Yes, I did, Mam,” she answered. It took an effort to simulate enthusiasm, but she made it, as she described the picnic and listed those who had been there, achingly aware of her father’s strained silence. But he poured tea and, in response to her gesture, carried a cup over to her, which, without asking whether or not her mother wanted it, she induced her to drink.

“I was reading some of Red’s old letters aloud,” Justin Broome said when Jenny returned the empty cup to the tray. He met her gaze, his own mutely unhappy, and she guessed that something must have occurred during her absence to add to his distress on her mother’s account. He had talked to Dr. Munro, perhaps, or … Her teeth closed fiercely over her lower lip as she felt it tremble. The small, brass-bound wooden box, in which her elder brother Red’s letters were kept, stood open on the table beside him. Her mother, she thought, without even a twinge of jealousy or resentment, had always loved Red deeply—more, much more than either Johnny or her—and she had hoarded his letters over the years. Clearly, judging by the state of them, they had often been taken out and read and reread, for the pages were creased and the ink was faded, in places almost illegible.

She had been a baby, Jenny reflected, when Red had

joined the Royal Navy frigate Success as a midshipman under the command of the founder and first Governor of Perth, Western Australia, now Admiral Sir James Stirling and a member of the Board of Admiralty.

Red—whose given name was Murdoch—had made an excellent career in the navy, better even than their father’s. It was all there in the letters, some of which had been read to her, but Jenny gave vent to a regretful sigh. If she had thought of Will De Lancey as a stranger, how much more of a stranger had her elder brother become after an absence from his homeland of more than twenty years?

True, he had returned to Australia with his old captain, James Stirling, when the British government had finally approved the establishment of a settlement on the Swan River in 1829. But the new capital, Perth, was twenty-five hundred miles from Sydney, and Red had then been only a very junior member of Lieutenant Governor Stirling’s staff—too junior to be able to make the long journey to visit his family in any official capacity, and without the means to pay for a passage in a merchant ship.

In any event, Jenny recalled, he had found the initial mismanagement of the new settlement little to his liking and the problems of its first, ill-chosen free settlers even less so, and he had sought active service at sea in preference. Appointed to H.M.S. Dido, an eighteen-gun corvette under the command of Captain the Honorable Henry Keppel—brother of his fellow midshipman Tom Keppel of the Success—Red had been almost continuously in action. First he had been in China, where his ship had been engaged in the Opium War of 1842, and then the corvette had been ordered to Borneo, on an expedition for the suppression of piracy there and in the rivers of Sarawak, whose white rajah, James Brooke, had requested British government help. He—

“I’ll go on reading, Jenny.” Her father’s voice broke into her thoughts. “It gives your mother great pleasure to hear Red’s letters,” he added almost apologetically, “for all they are years out of date. But don’t stay if you would rather not.”

“I’ll stay, Dad,” Jenny answered.

She settled back in a chair by the window, watching her mother’s face. Jessica Broome’s dark eyes were aglow, she saw, her expression one of eager anticipation as she said softly, “He was telling us about the Dayaks, Justin, and about Mr. Brooke.”

“Yes,” Justin Broome acknowledged. He picked up one of the crumpled letters and searched for the place where he had left off. Clearing his throat, he commenced reading.

“The Dayaks are river pirates and headhunters, and they go about their evil business with great daring. Their war prahus are very swift, armed with brass guns and with forty or fifty oarsmen to propel them. But they are greatly in awe of Captain Keppel, whom they call the Rajah Laut, which means “Sea King,” and of our Dido, for she has the speed to give chase when we encounter their prahus at sea. When they flee upriver to their strongholds, we chase them in our boats… .”

Justin Broome went on, reading automatically for quite some time, but he was barely aware of what he was saying. His mind and his thoughts were on Dr. Munro’s visit earlier that day, and he heard again, in memory, the doctor’s words. Munro had spoken quietly and compassionately, yet his voice boomed out now in Justin’s ears, shutting out the sound of his own.

“It is a malignant growth, Captain Broome, stemming from the lump on your wife’s breast. Regrettably, I was unable to remove it.

Such a small lump it had been, Justin recalled with sick bitterness, and Jessica had borne with heroic courage the appalling pain of the doctor’s attempts to remove it. First the applications of acid had been tried and had failed, and then a surgeon’s knife had cut into the scarred and wasted flesh, but all to no avail: the ghastly growth had seemingly spread to other parts of her body that no knife could reach.

His wife, his beloved wife, was dying, Munro had said, and all he could do now was administer laudanum to ease the agony she was enduring. He could not say how long Jessica would have… .

Justin lost his place in the letter, and his voice sounded harsh to his own ears as he found the right line again and

went on reading, conscious that his daughter was looking at him in mute alarm.

Jenny would have to be told, he knew, and he would have to break the sad news to her as gently as he could, though perhaps she had sensed the truth, poor child. She was devoted to her mother, and since Jessica had been forced to abandon her brave pretense, Jenny had scarcely left the sickroom.

He came to the end of the letter he had been reading and, after folding it carefully, replaced it in its box.

“Have you had enough, dearest?” he asked. “Or shall I go on?”

“Only if it does not weary you too much,” Jessica said. “Reading his letters seems to bring Red nearer. And when you read them aloud, it’s as if he’s here in the room with us, telling us in person of what he has done and where he has been.” She smiled, her expression oddly wistful, so that Justin’s heart went out to her in helpless pity. “I wonder if we should recognize him if he were in the room now. It’s been so long, has it not? But perhaps he resembles you, Justin, now that he’s grown to manhood—he did as a boy.”

Damn Red to hell, Justin thought savagely, for his long absence! It would have meant so much to Jessica had she been able to see him now, but … He controlled himself and answered with a forced smile, “I never had red hair, my love. And now, damme, it’s gray! But I don’t imagine Red will have changed out of recognition.” He picked up another letter from the bundle, but intercepting a warning glance from Jenny, he hesitated a moment. Jessica, her face drawn from the pain she must be enduring, raised her hand in a dismissive gesture.

“Perhaps that is enough for today, Justin dear,” she said weakly. “Thank you for sparing me so much of your time.” Justin muttered a disclaimer, and she mused, as if he had not spoken, “Will De Lancey told us that his sister, Magdalen, met Red when she was in England last year, didn’t he, Jenny? He seemed to think that they saw a good deal of each other.”

Jenny, thus appealed to, gave her confirmation, again with a warning glance at her father. “Yes, he did. But like all Australian families with sons in the services, Will and Magdalen have been separated for years. And Magdalen wasn’t in London for long—she was in Scotland, with Judge De Lancey’s relatives, Will said. He met them, too, when he was a cadet at Addiscombe. He said they were titled and very grand.”

Her mother eyed her reproachfully but said nothing, and a knock on the door heralded Johnny to provide a welcome distraction. Tall and deeply tanned, he crossed the room in swift, impatient strides, and bending to kiss Jessica’s cheek, he smiled broadly and put a letter into her hand.

“From Red, Mam,” he told her, well aware of the joy his announcement would bring. “I called at the post office for mail, and this was waiting. I knew you would want to have it at once.”

Justin, anxiously watching his wife’s face, rose and took the letter from her, for she had paled alarmingly, and her hands were shaking as she sought vainly to break the seal.

“I’ll read it to you, my love,” he offered, and she thanked him with eyes that, he saw, had filled with tears. He offered up a silent prayer as he took the letter to the window in order to take advantage of the daylight. Dear God, for my poor Jessie’s sake, he prayed, let this be the news for which she has waited all these years! Let it be to tell her that our son is coming home… .

His own hands shook as he opened the letter. It began affectionately, as Red’s letters always did, with inquiries as to the health and well-being of his family and messages for all of them. Justin read these slowly, his gaze straying to the foot of the page, and for all his efforts to control it, his voice rose as he read.

“I have been appointed to the command of Her Majesty’s ship Galah, a Symondite corvette of eighteen guns, and have today read my commission to the ship’s company at Sheerness, and—praise be to heaven—my orders are to proceed to Port Jackson, to relieve the Otter on the Australian station. The posting will be for two years at least, the actual duration depending on circumstances, and I cannot find words to tell you, dearest

Mama, how happy I am to be coming home at last… .”

Justin broke off, his throat suddenly tight, as he heard Jessica cry out.

“Oh, thank God! Justin, it is the answer to prayer—truly what I have begged the good Lord to grant me. The sight of my son before I—” She bit back the words she had been about to utter, and Justin put down the letter and went to kneel beside the bed, reaching for her hands with both his own.

She knew, he thought dully. For all Dr. Munro’s well-intentioned insistence that she should not be told how serious her condition was, Jessica had seen through the doctor’s platitudes and promises, as she had seen through his own unconvincing expressions of hope for her recovery. But being the courageous woman she was, she had put on a show of believing them. He glanced across at Johnny and then at his daughter and saw that both had understood, reading the same meaning as he had into the words their mother had left unsaid.

Jenny made to rise, but her brother’s hand held her back. “When was that letter written?” Johnny questioned practically. “It arrived here by the Lady Frere, and she made the passage in just over five months, I believe—she was held up at the Cape. So that Red’s ship—what’s she called?—the Galah, should be well on her way, Mam.”

“If she sailed at once, Johnny.” Justin retrieved the letter, in control of himself again. “This was written on February nineteenth.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll read the rest of it, shall I, my love?”

“Yes, if you please,” Jessica whispered. “I expect Red will tell us when—when we may expect him.”

But Red was unable to give a precise date, they learned as Justin read on.

“We have to complete our fitting out and muster a crew, and Their Lordships have instructed me to make a shakedown cruise to Lisbon with dispatches, so probably it will be six or eight weeks before we set course for Australian waters. Rest assured that any delay will not be of my making, but we are to give passage to the future commandant of your new naval dockyard, Dad— one of the new breed of steam engineers now making their presence felt in the Royal Navy. Our passenger is an officer by the name of Lucas—a post captain, no less —and he is bringing his wife with him… .”

Justin smiled wryly. “Poor Red—his first command, and he’s to have an engineer captain thrust upon him! A married engineer captain, too—the lad will have to give up his quarters to them, I fear.” He did not wait for any comment from his listeners but continued his reading.

“However, Their Lordships have permitted me to choose my officers, and Cousin Timothy has already joined, as first lieutenant, and we are expecting young Francis De Lancey as our second, as soon as he can make the journey from Dunglass, in Scotland.”