The Gold Seekers (36 page)

“And he did not?”

“No, he did not. He insisted that he must have a statement from Mrs. Lucas. That’s why my father isn’t here; he’s gone up to the goldfields in search of the two of them, in order to obtain a statement. But that is no longer needed, thanks—” Red smiled across the table at his guest. “Thanks to your providential arrival. And to Judge De Lancey’s intervention, I suppose.”

“De Lancey … Are the judge and your delinquent young lieutenant related to the beautiful Miss De Lancey— Miss Magdalen De Lancey—whom I met, all too briefly, in Scotland?” James Willoughby’s tone was thoughtful, the expression on his thin, sensitive face suddenly eager, as if the memory Magdalen’s name had evoked were one he had long treasured, and Red stiffened instinctively. Of course it was possible that he and Magdalen had met; they would have moved in the same circles and attended similar functions, dinner parties, balls, and the like. Magdalen had relatives in Scotland, on her father’s side, Red reminded himself. There was an aunt, after whom she had been named, with whom she had stayed while waiting for her return passage to Sydney. She had gone there after her visit to her kin in London, where he himself had met her. Where he had met and fallen in love with her, if the truth were known … His mouth tightened.

“Yes,” he confirmed guardedly, in answer to James’s question. “Her father and younger brother. The judge is an

American but of Loyalist descent. He served with the British Army under the Duke of Wellington and was at Waterloo.”

“Ah, that explains the connection. Magdalen was staying with the widow of a Waterloo veteran, at Dunglass Castle, and I attended a ball they gave there. By heaven, Red, she is a charming girl—charming, as well as incredibly beautiful! Dark hair and blue eyes, the most delightful contrast imaginable. I confess I lost my heart to her.” James was smiling as he helped himself to cheese. “I made her a proposal of marriage after only two dances—the most impulsive thing I ever did in my life! I’d no idea who she was, only that she’d been born out here and intended to return to Sydney.” His smile faded, and he gave vent to a deep sigh. “Oh, she turned me down, of course. Who could blame her? She didn’t believe that I was serious, and perhaps I was not, at the time. But that was another reason for coming out here, Red. I wanted to see her again. She is here, is she not? She did come back to Sydney?”

“Yes, she came back,” Red confirmed woodenly.

He hesitated, conscious of an unreasoned anger, and James asked, with smiling casualness, “Is she married, Red? I imagine she must be—a girl like that. Lord, at the Dunglass ball she was almost under siege!”

Red shook his head. Fool that he was, he chided himself, to have conducted his courtship of Magdalen at so laggardly a pace. He had been obsessed with the threat to his naval career posed by Commodore Skinner’s miserable court of inquiry, but, damn it, the threat no longer existed! His pleasure at the unexpected reunion with Jamie Willoughby abruptly faded, and he said, a distinct edge to his voice, “No, Magdalen isn’t married, Jamie. But that doesn’t mean that she’s not—how did you put it? Under siege.”

To his annoyance, Jamie Willoughby threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “Do I sense rivalry? A prior claim?”

“You do indeed,” Red managed wrathfully.

“On your part, Red?”

“Certainly on mine, yes.” Reluctantly Red added, “And you will meet her again very soon, as it happens.”

“I shall be delighted to meet her again. But how so?”

“I had arranged to escort her to the church this afternoon, for Claus Van Buren’s wedding.”

“To which you also invited me, all unsuspecting? Oh, Lord, that is rich!” Jamie Willoughby’s tone was amused but, relenting, he offered seriously, “Your invitation need not hold, my dear fellow. I’ll go back to my ship if you wish to withdraw it, and no hard feelings. But I cannot promise not to offer you a challenge, unless Magdalen is already affianced to you. Is she?”

“No,” Red was compelled to admit. He rose to cross to the sideboard, ashamed of the jealousy he felt. “You’ll take a glass of port?” he invited. “Or brandy, if you prefer it … and a cigar? And of course I shan’t withdraw my invitation, Jamie. Half Sydney will be at the wedding. Only the diehard elitists will stay away, and there are not too many of them left, I’m glad to say.” He went back to the table and laid a brimming glass of brandy at his guest’s side. “I must go and change, if you’ll excuse me. The carriage I’ve hired will be here in half an hour.”

“A toast before you go, Red.” Jamie was mocking him, Red sensed, but good-humoredly and without even a hint of malice, and he responded to it with a good grace.

“To Magdalen De Lancey,” he said, and raised his own glass, echoing Jamie’s smile. They drank the toast together.

Half an hour later, the hired carriage bore them to the De Lancey residence, and Magdalen herself received them. She was looking more beautiful than ever, Red observed, slim and graceful, in a dress that matched the blue of her eyes, and with a beribboned bonnet that shaded but did not conceal the glowing loveliness of her small, piquant face.

To his secret relief, she did not at first appear to recall her previous meeting with his guest, but then, when Jamie himself reminded her of it, she exclaimed amusedly, “So that’s who you are! Of course, I remember now. You were exceedingly merry at my uncle’s ball. Merry to the point of recklessness, Sir James. We were dancing an intricate reel, with which neither of us was familiar, and—” She glanced at Red, her eyes bright with laughter. “And would you believe it, Red, he asked me to marry him!”

“I take it you rejected his overtures,” Red prompted, eager to make a jest of it.

“I could scarcely do otherwise,” Magdalen answered lightly. “He was a complete stranger, on whom I had never set eyes, and I don’t think we had been properly introduced. But”—her smile was warm—“now that Red has introduced us, I am delighted to renew our acquaintance, Sir James.”

Jamie bowed. “Your devoted admirer, Miss Magdalen,” he declared. “No longer reckless but, I assure you, no less determined.” Forestalling Red, he offered Magdalen his arm, and they went out together to the waiting carriage.

The church was already crowded when they reached it and were ushered to a pew on the bridegroom’s side, with Magdalen seated between them. In the foremost pew, Claus Van Buren and his best man were seated, Claus with his head bowed, seemingly deep in prayer, and so he remained, looking at no one, until the organ—a recent acquisition, gifted by the congregation—burst into a joyous warning of the bride’s arrival.

The girl came in a trifle hesitatingly, her eyes behind the enveloping veil darting anxiously this way and that, until they lit on Claus, who was on his feet and turning to look at her. Then, as if his welcoming smile had reached out to touch her, she lost her initial hesitation and advanced with oddly moving dignity to his side, on the arm of a slight, dark-haired young man in what, Red guessed, must be a borrowed velveteen jacket, tailored for one both taller and heavier than he.

Claus, he recalled, had talked of a brother who, like most of the new arrivals in the colony, had gone to the gold diggings but now, evidently, had returned to Sydney without the fortune for which they had all come to search … and who must have returned very recently, for his thin young face bore the unmistakable traces of a freshly shaved beard. But he looked happy enough and bore himself well, despite the borrowed finery, standing quietly aside to enable Claus to take his place beside his bride.

The clergyman, a gray-haired man whom Red did not recognize, stepped forward, prayer book open in his hands, to intone the opening address of the marriage service.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation, to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted by God in the time of man’s innocence, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church. …”

Red listened, conscious of a swift surge of emotion engendered by Magdalen’s closeness to him in the narrow pew. He ventured a sidelong glance at her, but she was seemingly unaware of him, her own gaze fixed on the two standing in front of the altar.

“… which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with His presence and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee,” the gray-haired priest read on, in a clear, deep voice. “It is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable among all men and therefore is not by any to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly… .”

Wishing that it might have been Magdalen and himself standing there, Red closed his eyes, visualizing the scene and permitting his imagination free rein. If Jamie Willoughby could propose to her on impulse, then surely he could do no less? She was the woman he wanted for his wife, heaven knew, and since the carefree, happy time they had spent together in London, no other woman had occupied his thoughts or found a place in his heart. What did ambition or his career matter? What did life hold, if it were lived only for these and lived alone?

“Claus Karimon,” he heard the priest ask, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

Claus’s answer, given firmly and with deep feeling, woke an echo in Red’s heart. Once again he looked down at Magdalen, and this time her gaze met his, and he saw that her blue eyes were misted with tears. She looked swiftly away, but when he reached for her hand, she made no attempt to withdraw it, and he felt her shoulder brush his.

“Mercedes Louisa, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded

husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honor and keep him in sickness and in health and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

The words seemed to be coming from a long way off, and the bride’s answer was a whisper of sound, scarcely audible to the listening congregation. Red did not hear it; he did not consciously hear the rest of the service as he stood, clasping Magdalen’s small hand in his, his heart thudding and his mouth dry. He had forgotten Jamie Willoughby’s presence and his threatened rivalry, and as Claus and his bride rose from their knees to follow the tall figure of the priest to the vestry, the organ pealed and, all about them, voices rose in the singing of a hymn.

“Magdalen,” he said, lips close to her ear, “I love you. I’ll love you till the day I die. Will you marry me, my dearest love?”

The dark head beneath the ribbon-trimmed bonnet was bowed in assent. “I will, Red,” she whispered softly, and, for all the lusty singing on all sides of them, Red heard her answer. He bore the hand he held to his lips, heedless of who might be watching, and then, as he lowered it, realized that Jamie had observed the gesture.

That he had also understood its significance became evident when, the service over, the congregation started to file out of the church in the wake of Claus Van Buren and his bride. Jamie, smiling, stood aside, permitting Red to offer Magdalen his arm, and as they walked out into the sunlight, Jamie bowed to them courteously and was gone.

Dora’s pains started when she was filling a water cask at the creek bank. She doubled up in agony as they tore at her, causing her to cry out with pain and shock. But there was no one to hear—the gold seekers had moved on farther downstream, Francis and Rob and Simon Yates with them, to where now they were digging gold-bearing quartz from the hillsides. An enterprising organization, styling itself the Great Nugget Vein Company, had set up expensive machinery on the lower reach of the Louisa Creek for crushing the quartz, and in common with the rest, Francis and his partners had decided that it would pay them to take advantage of it.

Dora drew a deep, sobbing breath, and as the pain subsided, she reached again for her cask. It was only half full, the water it contained brown and muddy, but it would have to do, she decided, for she had not the strength to refill it. The pains were premature, she told herself chidingly, for had not the doctor, whom she had consulted when she and Francis had gone to Sofala to be wed, had not that kindly, highly skilled man assured her that her child would not be born before November? And it was still only October— October the tenth, if her calculations were accurate, although perhaps they were not. Time passed her by these days, when each day had a sameness that dulled thought.

True, her belly was greatly swollen and distended, the child in her womb alarmingly active at times, but that, surely, did not mean that its birth was imminent? Had either of them supposed that it was, Francis would have stayed with her, ready to harness the horses to their wagon and drive her back to Sofala, where—even if the doctor had moved on—

there would be a midwife and other women, mothers themselves, who would care for her.

So … the pains had to be premature, or possibly a figment of her imagination. She had never borne a child before and therefore could not judge whether or not the severity of the spasm that had just passed ought to be taken as a warning. And the spasm had passed. Dora clambered awkwardly to her feet and, holding her half-filled cask as firmly as she could, started up the bank toward the small log cabin that her husband and the two young New Zealanders had built for her with such care. But the creek bank was slippery from the heavy rain of the previous week, and as she felt her feet slipping, the pain came again, and she dropped to her knees in the mud, unable to stifle the shriek that rose unbidden to her lips.

As before, the awful gripping of her stomach muscles gradually eased, and, really frightened now, Dora hauled herself up the bank on hands and knees, dragging the water cask after her with obstinate courage. In the past months she had learned to endure hardship and isolation; she had worked as she had never supposed she could work, ready each evening with a hot meal for her weary menfolk, and up at dawn each morning to light a fire, brew tea, and see them on their way to the distant diggings, each provided with clean linen and dry socks and a package of whatever food was available for their midday break.