An Innocent Masquerade. Paula Marshall

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СКАЧАТЬ Thomas is like,’ said her husband grimly. ‘He’s a man of strong passions who is not aware of it. One of these days he is going to find out. He can’t sit on himself for ever. What will happen then, God knows. I sometimes fear for him. The trouble is, he’s the image of your father—as he was before drink destroyed him. He may be fearful of behaving like him if he’s not careful, consequently he’s denying all human appetites. He eats his food as though he resents it, and a friendly word from anyone in the counting house earns a severe put-down—if he deigns to notice it, that is.

      ‘At the moment he hates everybody, particularly me because I’m trying to help him, and he resents that most of all. If Bethia hadn’t died, things might have been different…as it is…’ He shrugged his shoulders sadly.

      Hester gave a little moan of despair and, to comfort her, Tom said, ‘Try not to worry. He might even enjoy visiting Melbourne. Away from his memories things might yet go well.’

      But he did not believe what he was saying, and knew that Hester did not believe him either.

      Chapter One

      ‘It’s big, Pa,’ said Kirstie Moore faintly, shaking her ash-blonde head. ‘Melbourne is even bigger than I thought that it would be. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?’

      ‘Ballarat’ll be smaller when we get there, my love,’ said Sam Moore robustly, ‘and you know that we couldn’t stay at the farm. I explained all that before we set out.’

      Kirstie nodded an unhappy agreement. She considered saying something along the lines of ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,’ but refrained. Once Pa got an idea into his head it tended to stay there.

      She remembered the morning, nearly a month ago, when their neighbour, Bart Jackson, had come visiting and her father had told him that he could see a way out of the cripplingly narrow and poverty-stricken life which was all that living on their barren farms was giving to them. They and their children deserved better than existing on the edge of starvation in a place where young Kirstie would never find a suitable husband.

      ‘We can sell our land, go to the gold field and make our fortunes,’ he said vigorously. ‘Jarvis, the banker from Melbourne, is only too willing to buy us out and sell them to some Melbourne bigwig with more money than sense. We can use the proceeds to outfit ourselves for the diggings. Come on, Bart, there’s nothing left for us here. What’s to lose?’

      Bart, who had always followed Sam’s lead, thought that this was splendid advice, and they shook hands on it. After he had gone Sam walked into the kitchen to tell his eldest daughter this exciting news. ‘What do you think of going to the gold fields, eh, Big Sister? Ballarat, perhaps? They says there’s riches there for the taking.’

      Kirstie, who had been known to her family and friends as Big Sister ever since her mother’s death in giving birth to little Rod, believed at first that her father must be joking.

      ‘I thought you was off to milk the cows, Pa, not daydreaming.’

      ‘No, Big Sister,’ he told her. ‘No more milking cows for me, I hope. I’m tired of working like an ox for nothing. We’ll sell up, and be off to the diggings as soon as possible.’

      ‘The diggings, Pa?’ Kirstie nearly dropped Rod, whom she had been spoon-feeding, in her excitement and horror at hearing this unlikely news. ‘What shall we live on there?’

      ‘This,’ he said, waving a hand at the few poor sticks of furniture in the room. ‘Together with the money for the farm it’ll give us enough for a stake, as well as for a couple of drays, digging equipment and a little something for food until we strike lucky. There’ll be young men there, perhaps a husband for you, as well—there’ll never be one here. Besides, others have made their fortune at the diggings—why shouldn’t we?’

      Kirstie’s blue-green eyes flashed at him. ‘And others have lost everything—and I don’t want a husband, I’ve the family to look after and that’s enough for me.’

      ‘But it won’t always be, Big Sister.’

      ‘And we shall be leaving Mother’s grave behind us.’

      ‘Kirsteen,’ he said, using her real name for once. ‘She left us nigh on two years ago and staying here won’t bring her back. She had a hard life, daughter. I’d like a better one for you. You’ll live like a princess if we strike it rich.’

      ‘If…if…if…’ she said fiercely. Big Sister was always fierce and kind and hardworking. ‘It’ll be hard for the little ones in the diggings.’

      ‘You’re wrong there. The little ones will like it most of all. They’ll be free to run around, you see.’

      Kirstie wailed in exasperation. She knew that it was no use trying to talk to him, he had already made his mind up before he had so much as said a word to her.

      ‘Don’t take on so, Big Sister,’ Sam said humbly. ‘I know it’s hard. Harder to stay, perhaps. The kids are wild to go.’

      ‘The kids don’t know any better. You do.’

      Sam Moore gave a heavy sigh and sat his big body down on a battered chair.

      ‘Oh, Big Sister, can’t you see? It’s my last chance to have any sort of life. The farm killed your mother and it will kill you. You’re already getting her worn look and you’re still so young. Please say that you understand and will make the best of it. You’ve never failed me yet, however hard the road.’

      This humble appeal moved her as his enthusiasm had not.

      ‘Dear Pa, if that’s how you feel, I’ll try to do my duty by you—but I wish that you’d spoken to me first.’

      ‘And now you know why I didn’t. Oh, Kirstie, I want to hear you laugh again—there’s not been much that’s jolly here lately, has there—?’

      She was about to answer him when the door opened and Patrick ran in.

      ‘Oh, Pa, is it true what Davie Jackson is saying? That we’re all going to the diggings to get rich? Oh, huzzah, I say.’

      After that she could offer no more opposition, however desperate she thought Pa’s plan was. The notion that simply going to the diggings would secure her a husband was laughable, but she could not tell him so. Why should a suitor there be any better than poor oafish Ralph Branson whose offer of marriage she had recently turned down? It just showed how desperate Pa was that he could offer her such a prospect.

      Besides, she didn’t want to become a wife, since being a wife meant that you were simply a man’s drudge both in and out of bed. No, she would prefer to stay Big Sister and, later on, perhaps, the kind unmarried aunt who had no responsibilities to any man.

      In the meantime, she would cease to criticise Pa and offer him all her loving support in this unlikely venture.

      So here they were, Pa, Kirstie, Aileen, twelve, Pat, ten, Herbie, four, and Rod, two, bang in the middle of Melbourne with all their possessions loaded on to two drays, drawn by bullocks. Pa was driving one dray and Kirstie the other, with the Jacksons’ dray drawn up behind them.

      Oddly enough, when they had started out it had been Pat who had burst out crying at the prospect of losing СКАЧАТЬ