Bridie's Fire (18 page)

Bridie shook the reins and drove the horse around the back to the stables, her heart pounding. How could he be back? Surely Miss Charity wouldn't welcome him home? But then Bridie remembered how Charity had ignored or forgiven every wrong Martin Degraves had ever done, and she knew, deep in her soul, that Charity would talk her parents into taking him back into the family.

Bridie was hanging up the harness when she heard a sigh from behind her. Sitting in a corner of his black pony's stall was Gilbert, his knees drawn up against his chest, his expression troubled.

‘What is it, Gilbert? What's the matter?' asked Bridie, sitting down in the straw beside him.

‘They're sending me home, to England,' said Gilbert flatly. ‘Mr Hassledon has run away to the goldfields, so I've no tutor. Papa says the schools here aren't suitable and I'm to go to his old school in Essex and join Henry. He says I'm sterling, even if I was born currency, and he won't have me being a colonial. And Mama has given in. But I don't want to go. I know Mama and Papa say I'm going home, but Beaumanoir is my home. Henry has sent us letters and he says it always rains in England and it's cold all the time and I won't be able to have a pony and they cane you whenever you do anything wrong. I don't want to go there. I've never wanted to go there. I'll have to be months on the boat and then years and years in school, and then I'll be a man before they let me come home and nothing will be the same.'

He slumped lower in the straw and the black pony bent her head and nuzzled him. Gilbert's lip trembled. ‘Besides, how can I ever leave Sugar?' he said, reaching up to stroke her.

‘There's nothing for it, then,' said Bridie, suddenly determined. ‘We'll have to run away, the both of us.'

25

Billy Dare

Bridie took out a long length of muslin and wound it tightly round and round her chest. Then she pulled a coarse cotton singlet over it and a top shirt over that. She examined her reflection in the nursery mirror and smiled. Even though she felt too hot in these thick trousers, it felt good to be someone else. Not Bridie the scullery maid but Billy Dare, a boy adventurer, off to the goldfields to make his fortune.

‘Do I look like a boy?' asked Bridie, putting her hands on her hips and striking a pose.

Gilbert sat on the end of his bed in the nursery and frowned. ‘I wish you hadn't cut your hair.'

‘Only tiny little boys have long hair. I had to cut it,' she said, taking off her cap and running one hand over the thick crop of curly black hair. It made her face look sharper and her green eyes even bigger.

‘You don't look like you any more,' said Gilbert, uneasily.

‘Good. I don't want to look like me any more. I want to look like a lad.'

Gilbert's clothes fitted her well enough, even though she was two years older. The only disadvantage was that his legs were a little shorter than hers, leaving an unsightly gap between the bottom of her trousers and the tops of her boots.

‘So we'll go down to Sandridge and see if we can get a boat to Geelong,' said Gilbert, pulling open his dresser drawer and fishing around for his moneybox.

‘We can't spend all our money on passage,' said Bridie.

‘We're not spending any money on passage,' said Gilbert. ‘We'll stow away. I've read lots of stories about boys doing that. Besides, it's not as if it's very far to Geelong.'

‘But if we go by sea, then we'll have to walk all the way to Ballarat. If we take Sugar, we could ride together some of the way and then take turns and she could carry supplies for us.'

Bridie loved Gilbert's little black horse. Sugar reminded her of the wild black pony she and Brandon had ridden through the surf. But more than anything, they needed the horse to carry their stores. Bridie knew the journey would be long and hard without Sugar.

‘I hadn't thought about taking Sugar,' said Gilbert, frowning.

‘I thought you said you didn't want to be parted from her? Who'll look after her when you're gone? Maybe they'll get Martin Degraves to take care of her,' said Bridie, baiting him.

Gilbert blanched. ‘No,' he said sharply. ‘I won't allow it.'

‘Tonight, then?' she said, looking at him fiercely. ‘You don't have to come, but if you are coming, it has to be tonight. As soon as Cook sees I've cut my hair off, she'll be angry, and I'm not taking a beating for nothing.'

‘Tonight,' he agreed.

They waited until all the lamps were out and then scrambled over the wall of the stables. Bridie had filled two calico bags with supplies – bread, flour, salt pork, onions, apples and currants. She'd been gathering them together for the past few days, hoping that Dora wouldn't discover what she was up to and that Mrs Arbuckle wouldn't notice the odd missing onion. She needn't have worried. Mrs Arbuckle was so stricken at the loss of Albert that she seemed to have lost interest in most of the workings of the kitchen and spent every spare moment on her knees in prayer before the hob.

Bridie watched as Gilbert saddled up Sugar and filled her saddlebags with supplies. All of a sudden she wished Gilbert wasn't coming with her. What if something happened to Sugar? Or worse, Gilbert himself? She tapped him on the shoulder to speak to him, to tell him he shouldn't leave his home, but he put his finger to his lips and led the pony out of the stables. Her hooves clopped sharply in the cobbled yard, and Bridie felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Once they were through the gates of Beaumanoir, there was no turning back.

Moonlight fell in dappled patterns along the road. There was not a soul in sight as they rode through Toorak towards St Kilda Road. Bridie rode behind Gilbert, her arms around his waist, feeling the slow, steady rhythm of Sugar's gait. An hour later, when they'd reached Princes Bridge, she glanced back over her shoulder down the long stretch of St Kilda Road, checking that no one was following them. Elizabeth Street was still and empty as they passed through the city.

‘We'll have a good head start by dawn. They'll never think we've gone so far,' said Bridie, pleased.

‘Yes, but we have to get off her now,' said Gilbert. ‘I don't want her to get worn out, we're too heavy for her. We still have to make the Keilor Plains by daylight. We can take turns, one riding Sugar and sleeping in the saddle while the other walks.'

The sun came up behind them as they headed west along the track to Bacchus Marsh. Gilbert was the first to take the sleeping shift while Bridie led Sugar through the salt flats on the edge of the town. When it was her turn, she leaned forward in the saddle and rested her face in Sugar's thick, black mane. The rolling gait of the little pony quickly lulled her to sleep.

By dawn the road was crowded with other goldseekers. They came out of the bush and joined the track, like ants drawn to honey. Most of them were men with broad, battered straw hats, wild beards, and trousers thick with clay and mud. Some were on horseback, some on foot, and a lucky few had carts loaded with supplies. Bridie and Gilbert led Sugar to a drinking trough and stood looking at the procession of people streaming past.

‘Do you think everyone will find their fortune?' asked Gilbert, frowning.

‘Probably not,' said Bridie. ‘But we will.'

‘How many days do you think we'll need to get to Ballarat?'

‘As many as it takes,' said Bridie.

The first night out of Melbourne, they led Sugar off the road and made a fire of sticks they'd collected along the way. There were campfires all over the flat plains on either side of the road. Bridie set a snare in the yellow grass at the edge of the camp, hoping to catch a rabbit, while Gilbert unsaddled Sugar and set her to graze.

‘What are you doing?' asked Gilbert, wandering over.

‘What does it look like? I'm setting a snare to catch us a rabbit.'

Gilbert laughed.

‘And what might you be laughing at?' snapped Bridie.

‘You'll not catch a rabbit with that snare.'

‘I've caught rabbits all my life. My father caught rabbits. There's nothing wrong with my snares.'

‘Bridie, it's not your snare. There are no rabbits in this country. Maybe you'll catch something else, but whatever it is, it won't be a rabbit, and I don't know that I'll want to eat some sort of ratty-looking thing.'

Bridie looked out over the flat, salty landscape. ‘Well, before too long we'll have to eat whatever I catch. We can't be buying all our whack, and I can't make you broth from thin air.'

‘You don't need to get short with me,' said Gilbert. ‘It's not my fault that there are no rabbits. I dare say someone should bring some out from home. But until they do, there's not much point setting snares for them. I've heard that some settlers eat possum, but they live in trees.'

Bridie didn't speak much as they sat by the fire and ate the stew she'd made from their supplies.

‘Don't be cross, Bridie. We're meant to be chums. Tell me a story. About gold, about finding gold or treasure.'

Bridie looked across the fire at Gilbert. He was right. It was a long way to Ballarat and they couldn't afford to be at each other's throats.

‘Well, they say at home that if you dream of finding gold, you like as not will find it. I heard of a man, he dreamed one night that there was a bridge in the next county and beside the bridge was a blacksmith's and beneath the bridge was a crock of pure gold. So the man crossed the county and then strode out onto the bridge and all day he searched, under the bridge and beside it, and the smith working at his forge watched him and called out, “Now why is it you've been walking back and forth across the bridge all day?” So the dreamer told the smith about how he'd dreamed of gold beneath the bridge, and so the smith, he laughed and said, “Well, I had such a dream myself. But I dreamed the gold was in a garden,” and as he described the garden, the man realised that it was his very own garden at home in Dunquin, so he hurried home and sure enough, there was gold in his own garden, and the dreamer had no end of riches. But I never heard that the smith found gold under the bridge by the forge.'

‘So do you think if I dream there was gold beneath Beaumanoir, I should go straight home?' Gilbert asked, teasingly.

Bridie shrugged and took his empty plate, wiping it clean with a handful of grass.

‘I suppose you must follow your dream, as I'm following my own.' Indeed she was afraid that when the going got rough, Gilbert would find himself yearning for the garden at Beaumanoir. Bridie knew how the past could reach its tentacles towards you and tear at your heart.

They stretched out on a blanket beside the fire and watched the stars come out. Bridie recalled the cold nights huddled in the ruined village with Brandon, that gnawing knot of hunger in their bellies, the way the world seemed to be folding in around them with only the sky offering hope. For the first time since she'd left Ireland, she felt as if those bleak times had happened to someone else. The memory of Brandon was the only thing that bound her to her past.

‘Bert,' said Bridie softly, ‘do you ever wonder about the stars on the other side of the world?'

‘No, I know I like being under these stars. Under that cross,' he said pointing at the Southern Cross. In the firelight, his curls spilled out from under his cap and lay like rings of gold on the saddle he used as a pillow.

‘Miss Charity told me that she thinks of that sky all the time, that she carries it inside her.'

Gilbert wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Charity's real sterling. She was born at home in England. I'm currency. It makes me different.'

Bridie looked up at the swirling stars and realised she felt different too, even though she was born under another set of stars. It was as if the sky and the whole world was opening up before her. She hadn't felt like this since she'd disembarked from the
Diadem
. In her rough boy's clothes, she wasn't Bridie O'Connor, an Irish waif from Dunquin. She wasn't an orphan girl at sea, an unwelcome newcomer to a new land. She wasn't even a servant of the De Quinceys any more. She had money in her leather pouch, a swag full of food and a stalwart companion. She could be a whole new Bridie. It was a feeling that made her feel dizzy with pleasure. She shut her eyes, but the stars still whirled in her imagination as sleep took hold.

26

Leap of faith

By mid-morning, the track was swarming with goldseekers again – men pushing barrows, men in carts, and Chinamen with bundles balanced on long poles across their shoulders. Gilbert kept close to Sugar's head so the pony wouldn't be frightened by the press of men and horses. The noise of carts and barrows was so loud that Bridie and Gilbert couldn't hear each other speak. There were hardly any women, and Bridie was glad of her boy's clothing. No one paid any attention to them, just two lads in the crowd of men and boys.

In the late morning, it started to rain and the yellow earth turned to mud. Sugar struggled on, her flanks spattered with mire, her mane wet and bedraggled. By midday, they were all soaked through. Gilbert tethered Sugar to a slender gum tree and he and Bridie sat down on the side of the road, using Gilbert's coat to shelter them from the rain. Bridie pulled a loaf of bread from inside her shirt and broke the end from it.

Gilbert picked at the soft, doughy centre of the loaf and stared out into the rain. Bridie wondered if he was thinking about his warm bed in the nursery at Beaumanoir. Then his face lit up in a smile as a small dog trotted towards them, its curly tail erect. It sniffed at Gilbert's boots and looked at the two wet children with curious brown eyes. Bridie broke her bread and offered the pup a piece. It took the morsel daintily between its teeth and then it was gone, scampering off into the rain, weaving its way between the parade of legs.

Bridie and Gilbert got to their feet again and followed the long, yellow mud road. By late afternoon, they were in dense bush and Bridie was starting to feel uneasy. She'd heard stories of bushrangers and wild natives that murdered unwary goldseekers. She was relieved when they rounded a bend and saw the flickering lights of a fire where dozens of diggers had set up camp in an open clearing.