The Pride of the Peacock (25 page)

Perhaps because what I had read had given me such a sense of the past or perhaps merely because this was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, I was filled with exhilaration which completely eliminated the mild depression I had begun to feel at the prospect of leaving the ship which had been my home for so long.

I stood leaning on the rail as we went through the Heads-past numerous cove-like indentations and sandy beaches fringed with lush foliage. Then the buildings began to appear and it was obvious that we were coming to a considerable city.

“What a beautiful place 1’ I cried.

Joss looked pleased.

“We shan’t be so far away up at Fancy Town,” he said.

“You’ll be able to take the odd trip into Sydney and do your shopping. There are some fine shops there -and hotels too. Of course you’ll have to camp out for a night or two very likely on the way.

Though there are home steads where you might stay,”

“It sounds exciting.”

“It will be. You’ll see. I wonder if anyone’s come to meet us. We’re staying at the Metropole. It will take us a couple of days to get out to Peacocks.” i “How shall we go?”

There’s Cobb’s coach but it doesn’t go our way, so I reckon to ride would be the best. You’ll be glad of those riding lessons I gave you.

”

Everyone seemed to know Joss and that made disembarkation easy.

Our baggage would in due course be unloaded and sent to the hotel where it would arrive later in the day. i “We’ll spend a week at the Metropole,” Joss told me.

“I have business to do in Sydney, and I reckon you’d like to see, a bit of it before we go to Fancy Town. Get into the buggy;

and it’ll take us to the hotel. We’ll just take a few personal things with us. ” ,;

The hotel was situated in the heart of the town and the| reception area

was crowded with people who talked loudly to each other, but Joss forced his way through to the desk and emerged with two keys.

I saw the ironical grin on his face as he handed one to me.

“All according to contract,” he said.

I flushed with irritation. He had completely lost that tenderness which I had fancied I glimpsed during the voyage.

Our rooms adjoined and there was a communicating door between them.

Maliciously he watched my anxious glance towards this, and he went to it at once and taking the key from the lock handed it to me as he had on the first night of our marriage.

The room was pleasant with french windows on to a small balcony. I went out on to this and looked down on the streets teeming with people and horse-drawn vehicles. We had indeed come to town.

I washed and when I was ready sat down on my bed to wait. It was not long before there was a knock on my door and Joss came to conduct me to dinner. We went down the wide staircase to the lounge which was full of men talking earnestly.

“Graziers from all over New South Wales,” Joss told me.

“Some from the other side of the Blue Mountains. There are some gold men here too.

There’s something about a gold man. It’s the look in his eyes. It’s as though he’s searching for something. Hope deferred, I suppose. And that makes the heart sick. That’s how so many of them are . sick at heart because their dreams have been grander than reality. Then you pick out those who have struck their bit of gold. They’re not often happy men because they’ve found that there are things gold can’t buy and they’re the things they want most. Then there are those who have made their little pile and are going to spend it. They’re all here.

Now the grazier . he’s a different species . though God knows he has his troubles . droughts, floods, swarms of pests that can destroy his land and animals. I can tell you there are more plagues here than there ever were in the land of Egypt. “

We went into the dining-room and he said: “We’ll have a steak. It’ll be a treat to eat fresh meat.”

And although I felt vaguely resentful of his taking command and telling me what I should eat I nodded agreement.

The steak was certainly good and after we had eaten it we took coffee in the lounge, but it was so noisy that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak.

Joss said it had been a tiring day for me and I should

reure, ana i man i Know wnemer to De pleased by his concern for me or to reseat his giving orders.

It was true I was tired, so I said good night and went to my room, assured myself that the communicating door was locked and enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

We met at breakfast-a hearty one for Joss consisting of lamb chops and kidneys.

“We’re good trenchermen here,” he said.

“It’s the outdoor life. I’m going to spend the day taking you round and then I shall have business to attend to. I want you to meet some of the people who buy and sell opals and though it will be just sod al here, you’ll pick up quite a lot. Then you’ll probably find it a good idea to shop. First, though, I’ll show you something and you’ll get your bearings.2 I said it was an excellent idea and after breakfast we set off.

He drove the buggy himself and first he wanted to show me the harbour.

I had seen it from the ship of course, but this was different. We could drive in and out of the coves and from the heights we could look down on those wonderful bays. The sea was the colour of sapphires.

“It looks beautiful,” he said, ‘but I can tell you that there are sharks lurking beneath that innocent blue. If you ventured in you might easily end up by providing a shark with his dinner. “

“What a horrible thought.”

Things are not always what they seem,” he said with a grin.

“It’s certainly true of the water and it looks so calm and peaceful.”

That’s the time to be wary. If sharks frighten you how are you going to like it out at Fancy Town ? “

Thafs something I shan’t know till I’ve experienced it. “

“You’ll find it very different from England.” He had brought the buggy to a standstill and was looking intently at me.

“Some people come out here and get so homesick they can’t endure it. They just pack up and go home.”

“Ifs hard to leave your native land.”

“My ancestors came out here seventy years ago.”

“Were they homesick?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if they were. They had to stay. My mother’s father came out on a convict ship. He was no criminal, but he was a man of certain opinions that didn’t fit in with what was thought

right and proper. He offended some people and a charge was trumped up against him and out he came.

Fourteen years was his sentence. Her husband’s mother was a lady’s maid accused of stealing her employer’s valuable brooch. She was innocent, says the family, but all convicts were innocent according to their families. Most people have a yearning to go back to England.

”

“And do you?”

Sometimes. It’s a second home to me and I get torn between the two.

When I’m here I want to be in England and when I’m in England I’m longing for Australia. Perverse of me, but then I’m a perverse sort of person. “

I did not disagree which amused him. He made me uncomfortable often because he liked to read my thoughts.

‘like Ben,” he went on, ” I was taken with Oakland. Part of me would like to stay there and become a sort of squire and now I’m married to a Qavering perhaps I qualify. On the other hand, opals are here and opals are my life. You see the dilemma I’m in. “

“An embarras de ricbesses, I believe.”

“Yes, but I shall not allow it to embarrass me. I’m the sort who’s determined to get the best out of both worlds.”

“So you will return to Oakland for visits?”

“Yes. Ifs a pity it’s on the other side of the world, but what are a few thousand miles ?”

“Nothing to you,” I replied blithely.

“I am sure,” he said, ‘that you would like to visit the old place now and then. “

“Indeed I would.”

Now we have one matter on which we agree. I think we are progressing.

”

“It’s natural for me to want to visit my home, so it hardly seems like progress.”

He just laughed at me.

We rode back through the dty where he showed me how the streets wound round in an inconsequential manner because in the beginning when the settlement was founded the tracks round the hills were made by carts and riders and in time became streets.

“Sydney grew rather than was planned,” he said.

“Which is what a city should do,” I replied.

“How much more interesting that something should be in a certain place for a reason other than because someone drew it on a plan.1 ” I can see you’re romantic. “

“If’s not a bad thing to be.”

i57 mars too proiouna ror me to consider when I’m driving a | buggy through the streets of Sydney. “

” ” I should have thought nothing was beyond your powers. “

“So that’s your opinion of me. I must say I’m happy to have made such a good impression.”

“Ben used to say that people are taken at their own valuation.”

“And that’s what you are doing in my case?”

“I have yet to discover what other people’s opinions of you are.2 Joss was at least an informative companion. He talked quite lyrically of Captain Cook who had arrived in 1770 and taken possession of New South Wales for the British Crown, and how it had been named New South Wales because those who first saw it thought it bore a resemblance to that coast at home; and then seventeen years later when it had been decided to use this beautiful land as a convict settlement the first shipload had come out in 1787.

They were little better than slaves,” said Joss, ‘and flogged for the slightest offence. Those were cruel times, and although some of those who came out were hardened criminals, many were political prisoners and men of intellect.”

“Uke your grandfather.2 ” Exactly. Then later others came out to make a new life for themselves. Land could be bought for the sum of ten pounds a block and a block was five miles square, so it wasn’t necessary to have a great deal of capital to start with. Convict labour was available and all that was needed was hard work. And how they worked! You’ve seen the graziers in the Metropole. Rugged men most of them-hard-headed, shrewd men who knew the meaning of disaster. You’ve heard about the plagues, the floods and the droughts. There’s another evil, the forest fire. It can do terrible things in our Bush. You see, there’s plenty to contend with out here. You have to forget the easy, cosy life. “

You’re warning me again. “

“If you feel in need of warning, take it.”

“I believe you have a poor opinion of me. I’m surprised because I have quite a fair opinion of myself and if Ben was right…”

He laughed and for a time I felt he was no longer laughing at me but with me.

As we drove back to the hotel he said: “Everyone who comes out here is

in a sense a gambler. The miners, of course, are all lavishly endowed with the gambling mentality. Every day they start out to work they say to themselves: ” This will be the day. ” At sundown they know it is not, but there’s always hope. Those who go after gold are the same … and after opal. They always think they’ll find another Green Flash at Sunset.”

“You’ve seen the real thing, of course.”

“fes, as I told you, I saw it once as the sun was setting.”

“You would succeed where others failed.”

I enjoyed those days in Sydney. In the evenings I met some of Joss’s business associates, and with one of them was his wife so she and I did some shopping excursions together.

In bustling George Street I bought material to be made into practical garments for my new life, and we roamed through Pitt and Elizabeth Streets marvelling at the merchandise. I acquired two large straw hats which my companion advised me to buy, for I should need them against the fierce Australian sun which was far more brilliant than that which was experienced in England. I was pleased with them because they were quite becoming and served two purposes-use and decoration. In King Street I bought ribbons and hairpins.

In due course the time came for us to leave. Joss spent a long time choosing the horses we should hire. Most of our baggage would come by coach to Fancy Town where we should pick it up. We took one pack horse with a few belongings and provisions. Our journey from England had taken a little over se weeks and we were at the end of November, which was the equivalent of our May. The wild flowers were so colourful that I kept exclaiming at then-beauty, which I saw was very gratifying to Joss; but most impressive of all. were the tall eucalypts-aloof, indifferent, towering over the tree ferns and native beech and ash as they reached for the sky. Joss was as knowledgeable about the countryside as he had been about Sydney and I found a new excitement in having such a good mentor beside me.

“Look at those eucalypts,” he said.

“We call them stringy-barks.

That’s because of then-tough fibrous barks. The term is bush slang for bad whisky too. You’U find the language colourful and you’ll have to learn some of it’ “I shall be interested to,” I told him.

Glad to hear it. It’ll help you along a bit. Look over there. That’s what we call a spotted gum. See the markings on the bark? “

i9 pounds me country was flat, and the dryness of the land was particularly noticeable after -the green fields at home. Having no other as contrast, I had never before realized how green they were. The roads were rough and full of holes, and our horses raised a cloud of dust.

We climbed small hills and crossed more flat country; we went over dried-up creeks and at length came to a homestead -a one-storeyed building surrounded by grazing land. Joss said he thought we should stay the night here, for the pull from where we were to Fancy Town would be too long to do in one day. The next night he planned to stay at Trant’s Homestead and reach the Fancy the day after that.

He rode into the yard and dismounted, by which time a woman in a voluminous black dress over which she wore a white apron had come out.

‘ Joss talked to her and then he came back to me.

They’ve only one room,” he said. This is not a London hotel, you know.