The Black Opal (14 page)

“She had all sorts of curios in the window, and one day

I saw this pendant. It had an unusual inscription on it and 1 went in to see it. Miss Dowling was delighted when people were interested in her goods, and she immediately brought the pendant out of the window to show me.

‘ “I think it’s of Romany origin,” she said.

“That’s what I was told.

These signs mean something. Good luck, something like that. It usually is. ” Well, I decided to give it to Rosaleen, so I bought it. She loved trinkets and the gipsy association would amuse her.

“As I was coming out of the shop, I saw Edward. He was just going in because he was interested in an old book Miss Dowling had. We found the book and we chatted with Miss Dowling, who mentioned the pendant.

“As we walked back to Commonwood House, the doctor asked me about it, and I showed it to him and told him about the Romany designs which had some meaning and which the gipsies might understand. He was always intrigued by anything like that and he was immediately interested in the pendant. I felt he was rather reluctant to hand it back to me.

Then he went on to give me a lecture on this gipsy association of mine. Gipsies were a wild and reckless people, he warned me.

“I answered him in my flippant way and told him that life was littered with pitfalls and, if one watched out for them all the time, one would fail to see all the blessings which were undoubtedly there.

“I’m fond of the doctor, and I think he is of me. Moreover, I was desperately sorry for anyone who had married Grace. I think he was aware of my sympathy and grateful for it and, although he deplored what he called my attitude to life, I think he was a little envious of it.

“I used to talk of him to Rosaleen. She was very interested in everything at Commonwood. She knew about Adeline’s deficiencies and said it was a punishment for Mrs. Marline’s arrogance and pride. I pointed out that it was a pity poor Adeline should suffer for her mother’s sins.

“Well, the point of all this is that, when you were found, the pendant was round your neck, and Edward immediately knew whose child you were and he told Grace. Her brother’s child was a Sinclair and that must not be forgotten. So she agreed that you should be brought up in the Marline household.

“And Rosaleen, satisfied that her child was in the best place, went away and pursued her career. The doctor wrote to me and told me that my daughter was at Commonwood House, being brought up with his children.

“You can imagine how excited I was. A daughter of my own! There had been no question of children for Elsie and me. Elsie couldn’t have them. It was one of the reasons why things went wrong between us, I believe. Elsie’s the motherly kind. You’ll see when you meet her.

“I longed to see this daughter of mine. It was unfortunate that I was so far away. You were three or four months old when Edward’s letter reached me. I wanted so much to come home. But there I was, on the other side of the world, and it was four years before we met.

“Meeting you was wonderful.”

I clasped my hands together, remembering.

“Everything changed when you came,” I said.

“Everything was different.”

He turned and kissed me.

“And that, my daughter, is exactly as it should be.”

I was in an ecstatic mood. Life was wonderful! At last I belonged, and there was no one I could have wanted to belong to more than to this wonderful man who was my father.

It was not surprising that I believed in miracles.

Each day seemed full of pleasure. I would awake with a feeling of intense delight. I was afraid to go to sleep in case 1 dreamed that this wonderful thing had not happened and was only part of a dream.

Not until I was wide awake in

could I assure myself that it was really true. And then I would be completely content.

I wanted to shout to everyone: “I am the Captain’s daughter,” but I could not do that. It would be too complicated to explain. I could not even tell Gertie. No, I must remain Carmel March, and he must be Uncle Toby until we reached Sydney and I met Elsie.

Uncle Toby1 still called him Uncle Toby and I would sit on deck whenever he could spare the time and talk of the future.

We agreed that he would remain Uncle Toby until we reached Sydney.

Then we should say goodbye to the people with whom we were travelling and it was unlikely that we should see any of them again. Then, should I call him Father? Papa? They didn’t seem to fit. For so long, I had called him Uncle Toby, so he suggested it should be just Toby. Why not? We must drop the Uncle. So we decided on that.

I should, of course, have to go back to Commonwood House and be educated. He reckoned it would be a good idea for me to go away to school. Estella would certainly go. It would be different now that I was known to be her cousin-not the gipsy foundling.

I grimaced, thinking of school.

“It has to be,” said Toby dolefully.

“Education is something you can’t do without and you won’t get the right sort roaming the seven seas with your newly-found father. Time passes. We shall meet whenever we can, and when an opportunity comes along I may take you to sea with me. In the meantime, we have the rest of this voyage to enjoy. I am so glad you know the truth. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. I thought you were too young, and then the moment seemed to come.”

“I am so glad to know.”

“Well, now we’ll go on from there.”

“It will be different at Commonwood House now.”

“Without Grace,” he said.

“I hope Miss Carson will be there.”

“It won’t be so bad, you know. And there will be those times when we can see each other.”

“I wish you were not so often away.”

“Life is never perfect. It’s better to accept that and not crave for the impossible. It is not so bad now, is it?”

I said with fervour: “It’s wonderful!”

The days were passing too quickly. I wanted to hold back time. We should soon be in Sydney. I looked forward to seeing that great city of which I had heard so much, but I was beginning to think of it as the first stage of my great adventure, and when we left it, I should be on my way back to England. There was some time ahead yet, but everything must come to an end; I should be back to the old life. I should have to go to school. The halcyon days would not last for ever.

That was why I could not bear them to pass so quickly.

The Indian Ocean would always have a special place in my dreams. Those balmy days, when I walked on deck with my father or sat with him looking out over that benign and beautiful sea; and those nights in the cool of the evening when we talked of the future and the glorious present. He would point out the stars to me and speak of the mystery of the universe and the wonder of living on this floating ball which was our planet.

“There is so little we know,” he said.

“Anything could happen at any moment … and the lesson of that is that, if we are wise, we should enjoy every one of them as they pass.”

I can appreciate those days now: and I can smile at the innocent child who believed that she had found the perfect way to live.

However, it is good to know such happiness and perhaps one is fortunate not to know that it cannot last for ever.

“3

We had rounded the north coast of Australia and had come down the east to Queensland. We spent a day in Brisbane and, as Toby had much to keep him in port, 1 went off for the day with the Formans.

They had changed. They had been so eager to reach Sydney and begin to take up their hew life, but now that they were almost there, I sensed a certain apprehension. They had been full of hope; land was cheap in Sydney, they had said, and if people worked hard, they could not fail to succeed. It all seemed so simple to talk of, but when it was near at hand, the doubts began to appear. It must be a wrench to leave one’s native land, even though ‘they’ were planning to make a road through your property and destroy its prosperity.

Gertie was a little withdrawn, and it was not the same as our first shore excursion. I remembered Naples with nostalgia. But, of course, I did not then know who my father was. I was in good spirits, but that did not prevent my feeling for the Formans.

We explored the city stretched out on either side of the River Brisbane. We visited Moreton Bay and the slopes of the Taylor Range on which the buildings which comprised the city had been erected. We listened to our guide’s account of how, in the early part of the century, it had been a penal colony; but we were all a little absentminded.

Gertie and I talked in our berths that night. Neither of us was tired -or if we were, we were disinclined for sleep.

“It will be different there,” Gertie was saying.

“I suppose I’ll have to go to school. It’s such a bore being young.”

1 agreed.

“It’s funny,” went on Gertie.

“All these weeks, we’ve been seeing each other every day, and when we get to Sydney, we’ll say goodbye and perhaps never see each other again.”

“We might. I might come out to Sydney.”

Gertie was silent for a while.

“Before we go, you ought to give me your address. 1 can’t give you mine because I won’t have one. I can give you the place we’ll be staying at, though. It’s a boarding-house run by a friend of someone we knew at home. She’s fixed us up there and we’ll be staying till we find a property.”

“I’m glad you thought of it,” I replied.

“We’ll write to each other.

That’ll be good. “

We both fell silent, a little comforted at the thought of not losing this link with a part of our lives which we should always remember with pleasure.

In two days we should be in Sydney. Toby had said that the ship would be in port for a whole week, and we could leave it and stay with Elsie. He often did this in such circumstances, he told me. All the passengers would leave then and, before we sailed on, we should embark others and in due course begin the journey back to England. It was necessary to stay that time as the ship was having an overhaul and needed some repairs.

“You’ll enjoy getting to know Elsie,” he said.

“Elsie’s a good sport.”

I was eager to see Sydney. In his graphic manner, Toby had told me a great deal about the place. He loved to talk of the old days. We sat on deck in the evening after dinner, and he explained how the First Fleet had come out in 1788 with its shipload of prisoners.

“Imagine those men and women, cramped up in the hold … very different from a nice cosy berth in a cabin shared with Gertie Forman on the Lady of the Seas, I can tell you. Sailing out from a home which most of them would never see again … to a new country and they knew not what.”

I shivered as I listened. I saw those men and women, taken from their homes . some of them little more than children . my age perhaps wondering what would become of them.

“Captain Arthur Phillip … he was the one who brought them out, and you’ll see his name here and there about the

“5

city. Sydney itself is the name of one of our politicians. And that of another, Macquarie, that’s a name you’ll see. He was a governor of New South Wales. He was a clever man. He did a lot of good to the colony.

He wanted them to feel they were not so much convicts expelled from their own land as colonists making a new one good to live in. He was the one who encouraged them to explore the land around them. It was in his time that they found a way across the Blue Mountains. Before that there was a feeling among the aborigines that the mountains could never be crossed because they were full of evil spirits who would destroy those who attempted to get to the other side. But they got across . and what was on the other side? Some of the best grazing land in the world. “

Tell me more about the Blue Mountains,” I begged.

“Magnificent. We’ll go there one day. We won’t be afraid of spirits, eh?”

That was how he talked, and I was all eagerness to see this land, but at the same time my pleasure must be tinged with sadness, because I hated to say goodbye to Gertie.

We had arrived. The ship had become oddly unfamiliar. I said goodbye to Gertie and her family. Mrs. Forman embraced me warmly and said: “We won’t lose each other, dear. We’ll be in touch.”

Mr. Forman had shaken my hand, and Jimmy had said a somewhat embarrassed goodbye. He had been rather shamefaced since our Suez adventure when Toby had reprimanded him so sternly. Gertie had given me a brusque goodbye, which I knew meant she was deeply moved by our parting. And now all the passengers had gone.

1 was waiting for the summons to Toby’s cabin, and then he and I would leave the ship but only temporarily, of course.

He had said: “This happens now and then. We have a longer stay in port

than usual and I’ll have a night or two at Elsie’s. It makes a change. Of course, I’m back and forth to the ship all the time, but it’s good to be on land for a spell.”

So, I was going to Elsie’s. I had not thought a great deal about her until now. His wife! They couldn’t get on as married people, but they liked each other otherwise. Surely it was very unusual for husbands who had left their wives to go back and stay with them for a friendly visit? But then, most things were unusual with Toby.

I walked round the ship, into those deserted public rooms. How different people make places! I went on deck. I leaned over the rail, looking at that magnificent view. I imagined coming in with the First Fleet and that I was a poor prisoner who had been sent away from home.

And I thought how fortunate I was. I might have been sent away to an orphanage. But my beloved father would never have allowed any harm to come to me. And that was how it would always be.

Elsie’s house was set in grounds of about three acres. It was built in the old Colonial style with a platform round the front and six steps leading up to a porch before the main door.

We were about to mount these when a little dark man came running from some outbuildings which were obviously stables.

“Captain! Captain!” he cried.

“Why!” said Toby.