Haunted Creek (18 page)

‘And then there are your years of experience, Mrs Teesdale, coupled with twenty-four-hour attendance. If we were in London, heaven forbid, you would charge me far more.’ Lordy seemed to be enjoying himself.

‘Now you mention it, I’ll be leaving you on your own from time to time. There’s Ada, of course, and I have to deliver the produce. Tomorrow it’s Haunted Creek.’

Lordy’s face lit up. ‘Is it? Will you pass on a message to the delightful Maeve? If I am still alive tomorrow, inform her of it, if you please.’ He looked at Rose. ‘Perhaps you will be able to tell whether she is happy to receive the information … or not.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I will do my best to survive. It would be so very inconvenient for you if I – um –
did a perish
, I think the term is – in your house.’ He was facing facts; it was still possible that the wound would spread poison through his body and kill him.

The next morning Rose left Lordy on her veranda with a book. She took Ada to school, came back, loaded up the donkey and went down the track.

Maeve was presiding over the bar in deepest black. Her greeting
to Rose was subdued. ‘Girl dear, have you heard the news?’ Her face was tragic.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That Lordy. Jasper. He’s dead, Lord bless him, as far as we know. There was a fight, here in the bar. A miner went for him with a pick. Such a thing was hardly ever seen in my time here before. I saw it, a mortal wound it was, but he went off in the dark … he’ll be found dead under a bush for sure, and him only doing what he thought was right.’ There were tears in the big woman’s eyes. ‘I was after stopping the fight but I should have gone after him….’

‘He’s alive, Maeve, so far anyway, and he wants to know whether you are pleased or not.’

Maeve waltzed around the bar and gathered Rose into her arms. ‘The man’s alive! Praise the saints! I’m deloited, me girl, and you can tell him so. Maybe I’ll go to see him and tell him myself.’

‘He might not survive if you grab him like that,’ Rose said as she detached herself. ‘I found him two days ago … the wound is quite bad but we’re treating it and Martha Carr has seen him. He won’t be able to travel for a while.’ Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What were they fighting about, do you know?’

‘There was a few miners had been drinking here all day.’ Maeve rolled her eyes. ‘I discourage drunkenness, but what can you do? Mostly they just fall asleep, but with some it brings out the worst, they turn to fighting talk. That’s what happened. They were picking on a poor lad that has just come out to the diggings from Ireland. Poor Sean has only the Gaelic and he still looks half starved. The famine’s a long time gone, but some of the parishes are that poor …’ Maeve paused to serve a couple of men who had just walked in.

In a few minutes Maeve went on quietly, ‘Well, two miners in particular were very cruel. He refused to fight, so they were twisting Sean’s arm up his back and forcing whisky down him. They meant to get him drunk but it was wicked – men have died that way. I begged them to stop but they sneered at me. I didn’t know what to do and Sean was rolling his eyes at me, pitiful he was.’

‘How dreadful! I wonder how you ever cope with a pub, with such unpredictable customers.’ Rose perched on a bar stool.

‘So then Jasper – that’s Lordy, you know – walks in with his head up as usual, looking down that beak of a nose, and he sees what’s going on. He goes white with a sort of fury, you know. Lordy gets like that.’

‘And he stopped them?’

‘Indeed and he did.’ Maeve sounded proud. ‘He was sober, of course, he don’t drink much. Clean and tidy for once, he hadn’t been working. Shouted at those miners, Lord love him, as if he was giving orders on his estate. “Stop that at once, you cowardly scum! You should be hanged!”’ Maeve attempted the upper-class English accent. ‘They only laughed at him, so he waded in. He knocked the drunks down and took poor Sean away to the washroom, made him sick. It probably saved his life.’

There was a silence and then Maeve whispered, ‘When he came back to help me, they were waiting for him.’ She looked round. ‘And Boris wasn’t here that night. They’d not have tried any of it if Boris had been here.’

‘I see.’ A miner’s pick was a lethal weapon in a case like that. Rose shuddered.

‘Three of them hit him, one stabbed him with the pick. Then I started throwing chairs at them and Lordy got away. The man’s no coward at all, but if he’d stayed they’d have killed him.’ Maeve sighed and then said briskly, ‘Coffee?’

A publican’s life was quite dangerous, thought Rose. ‘Yes, please, I would love some coffee.’ Rose felt quite protective of her patient and she wondered whether the men would pursue the quarrel. Lordy might be safer with her for a while yet.

They drank strong coffee and then Maeve called to the kitchen. ‘Come and mind the bar, Boris, I’m going out.’ To Rose she said, ‘Might you spare a few minutes? We could go to Jasper’s house and collect some things for him. He must be needing a change of clothes.’

‘P
RETTY STRIPES, MAMA
! Come and look at him!’

Rose was at the door of the hut when she looked up and saw what Ada had seen. A tiger snake was emerging from the flowers at the far side of the yard and Ada was running towards it with outstretched hands. She liked to look carefully at each new animal, frog, butterfly or beetle that they found and Rose had encouraged her interest.

Ada had never seen a live snake at close quarters before, or admired the pretty stripes. Rose had seen to it that they were kept away; if she saw one she made loud noises and beat the bushes with a stick until it disappeared. Ada had been warned that snakes could bite you, but Rose had avoided making the child too frightened to go outside. Now for the first time she was faced with one and she forgot the warnings.

Rose prayed that it would slide away. They usually did. But Ada let out a whoop of delight and it must have felt threatened; it came on aggressively.

‘No! Come back, Ada!’ Rose called desperately, but Ada took no notice, intent on the snake. Rose started to run towards them, stumbled in her haste and fell.

The creature was thick and well over three feet long, with vivid stripes. Its head was weaving from side to side, the mouth opening as it came. Rose started forward again but there was a lot of ground to cover. Too much; she could not save the child.

Lordy was sitting on the grass not far from Ada. He had been
dozing, or the snake would have been chased off before the girl saw it. Waking suddenly at Ada’s shout, Lordy flung himself bodily between the child and the snake, and fell forward at the last moment before it reached her. It lunged and struck him with its fangs, while Ada backed off in alarm. His reaction had been
amazingly
fast, but the snake was faster.

‘Get back, Ada!’ Rose shouted.

Lordy twisted round and gave the snake a kick with his stout boot. It took off at great speed, but the damage was done. Rose’s mind started to race. Snakebite remedies – what were they? Martha had said that they were not likely to work. Once the poison was in, you couldn’t get it out. It had all happened so quickly and in a few seconds someone’s life could be taken. It might have been Ada’s. It was probably going to take Lordy’s.

Lordy lay on the grass where he had fallen, breathing heavily while Rose bent over him in an agony of remorse. She should have been watching Ada more closely; this should not have happened. ‘Jasper?’

With difficulty Lordy sat up. ‘The nearest run thing you ever saw, as the Duke of Wellington once said,’ he drawled. ‘Ada, my child, may I suggest that you keep a careful watch for snakes and try to avoid them? Snakes are not friendly, you see.’

‘Jasper – you’ve been bitten.’ The striped tiger snake was deadly; they all knew that it could kill a horse. He had saved Ada’s life. There were no words to thank him.

Ada was looking at him with concern. ‘That pretty snake’s gone away now. ‘Did it bite you, Lordy? Oh, dear.’ She sat beside him on the grass and patted his shoulder.

‘Not very much, dear child, don’t worry.’ Ada was looking very scared.

Rose didn’t believe him. She had seen the flickering fangs sink into his side. ‘But I saw it bite you,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever shall we do?’

‘Jumping in the creek’s the thing, so I’m told. Cold water to slow down the heart rate if you’ve still got one. But there ain’t much
anyone can do for a tiger snake bite, you know.’ Lordy winced and then smiled. Smiled in the face of death! Rose gasped and then he said, ‘Fear not, Rose, I shall not perish – not just yet. The fangs struck the bandage, luckily. Thanks to your extremely thorough bandaging, they didn’t reach my skin.’

‘Jasper … what can I say?’ Relief was following remorse and a great thankfulness and Rose felt very shaky.

The hero winked at her. ‘There’s something you can do. Reach into my bag in the cabin, if you please, and bring me the bottle of whisky you will find therein. I think we both would benefit from a wee dram, as the Scots have it.’ Rose smiled as she went to the cabin. Maeve must have slipped a bottle into the bag with Lordy’s change of clothes.

They sat on the veranda with Ada playing at their feet, drinking diluted whisky – in Rose’s case, well diluted. After they had relaxed a little Jasper said, ‘But I’m afraid, such a nuisance, the wound has opened. All your good work has gone for nought.’ He unbuttoned his shirt and Rose saw that a bloodstain was spreading through the bandage.

‘No wonder – that fall and twist could have injured anyone. Your wound was only just healed; it wouldn’t stand the strain. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Rose went off for the basin and swabs. When she came back she noticed that Ada was playing with a new toy; it was a tiny doll’s house made of pieces of bark. Its occupants were twig people.

‘Lordy made me a house,’ the child said happily. She had forgotten all about the snake.

‘Just a diversion. I made it the other day,’ Jasper said quietly. ‘The young mind needs to be diverted, you understand.’ Rose did understand. Ada had been pale and scared after the snake episode, probably because she could see her mother was upset.

That night as Ada got ready for bed, she took the toy house with her. She was thoughtful and then she said to Rose, ‘Lordy stopped that snake from biting me, didn’t he?’

‘He did. Wasn’t that brave of him?’ Rose was still feeling the effects of the fright they’d had. ‘You really will have to watch out for snakes, Ada.’

‘Yes, Mama, I will. Lordy is a good man, isn’t he? Do you like him?’

Rose pulled the little nightgown over Ada’s head. ‘Of course I do, we both do.’

Ada snuggled into bed with enthusiasm. ‘I’m tired. Mama, are you going to marry Lordy?’

‘Heavens, no. What put that idea into your head?’ Rose was alarmed.

‘They thought so at school.’ Ada’s big brown eyes looked up at her, considering.

Her carefully preserved reputation was in ruins. Rose spoke more calmly than she felt. ‘Now why would they think such a thing? How do they know he’s here, anyway?’ She hadn’t told anyone except Martha, and the Carrs were too busy to gossip.

‘’Cos I told them he’s living here and he has breakfast with us and you are looking after him. So they thought you might be going to marry him.’ Ada sat up. ‘Please mey I have a drink of watah?’

She sounded just like Lordy; she was picking up his speech. Ada would be the only pupil at Wattle Tree school to speak with an English upper-class accent. But Rose was far from laughing; this was serious. ‘Here’s your water. Now, Ada, you know that Lordy is here because he’s been sick. We’ve been making him well again and then he’ll go home. And do you know, it’s a secret – don’t tell anyone – but Lordy is going to marry someone else.’

‘I hope she’s nice,’ Ada said sleepily. ‘Good-night, Mama.’

It was going to take more time to heal Jasper’s wound after this and more care and attention. The patient had obviously worked this out and he suggested the next day that he should move
somewhere
else. ‘I have presumed upon your goodwill long enough, dear Rose,’ he said in his formal way. Rose was dismayed. How could she abandon a man who had just saved her daughter?

In one way, it would be better for her if he left, after what Ada had said. But the damage was done by now. Rose knew theirs was an innocent relationship, so what did it matter what the neighbours thought? In any case, she liked his undemanding company. Lordy was a gentleman; she understood what that meant now. He was quite used to ordering people about and he certainly liked his own way, but he was gentle and considerate. He would make Maeve a very good husband, if she could but see it.

‘Well,’ the nurse said thoughtfully, ‘your own house is better than mine and it’s neat and clean, I saw it when we collected your clothes. But you need company and treatment for a while yet and we’d like you to stay.’ She’d been surprised at the bare cleanliness of Lordy’s little wooden house. ‘I hope that you would like to stay.’

Lordy looked pleased. ‘Of course I would, delighted, my dear, but I am thinking of you. There is a great deal of work here for you, without medical orderly duties. So you like my house? I built it myself, you know. When I first came here I worked with a carpenter … the poor fellow was appalled at my lack of skill, but we did make progress in the end.’ He thought for a while. ‘Do you know, I think I could stay at the All Nations. Maeve has plenty of rooms.’

‘Dear Lord Barrington.’ Rose too was beginning to pick up his style. ‘I believe that you should avoid the All Nations hotel in the interests of safety, for some time at least.’

Lordy grinned. ‘Maeve told you how I lost a fight. Damned
careless
of me.’

After this, Lordy settled down; he took Rose’s advice, ate
everything
she gave him and made good progress. The wound healed again with generous applications of honey, following bathing in eucalyptus water as before. Honey was an old-fashioned country remedy that Rose had learned long ago in Yorkshire. She was impressed with the way honey kept the wound clean of infection and it must have also healed, because every day she could see an
improvement. More honey was bought at the store; she would always keep some by her in future.

One evening when she was gently dressing the wound, Rose said, ‘The Ganai women told me that gum leaves in water stops things going bad, or I might not have thought of it.’

Lordy raised aristocratic eyebrows. ‘Really? At one time I thought of going into the eucalyptus business. I understand from friends in Melbourne that surgeons are using eucalyptus oil as an antiseptic these days. And about time, too. The insanitary
conditions
in our hospitals were appalling until Miss Nightingale took it upon herself to improve matters.’

‘You didn’t fight in the Crimea, did you, Jasper?’ He had a
military
way with him sometimes. Freda had lent Rose a book about Florence Nightingale and her heroic deeds and she would have loved to talk to someone who had actually met the lady.

‘A little before my time, don’t you think?’ Lordy was shaking with laughter. ‘I fought in the third Ashanti war with Wolseley in ’74, that’s all, and I came here straight afterwards. Decided that I’m a man of peace.’

Maybe that was where he’d got the jagged scar. ‘All the same, if you have fought Ashanti in – Africa, was it? – it was rather
careless
to allow three drunken miners to get the better of you. Keep still while I fasten the bandage,’ Rose said severely. ‘Jasper, you wriggle too much.’ She passed the bandage round his slim body once again.

‘How very critical you can be at times, nurse! That was a little hard, you know.’ They both laughed. Rose looked up at that point and she thought she saw a motionless figure at the gate, watching them. The next moment it was gone. Had she imagined it? If someone had been there, who could it be?

In three weeks, Lordy was feeling restless. He was mending, but still needed care. ‘I want some occupation. Have you a tape measure, dear lady?’

Mystified, Rose gave him one and he measured the floor of the
hut. Then he walked slowly off to visit the Carrs. Some time later he was driven back by Charlie in a cart and Rose thought the walk must have been too much for him.

‘I thank you, Charles, please unload here,’ he instructed and the youth took down boards from the cart. A bag of tools and nails followed. ‘I hope to fit a floor in this room of yours …’ Lordy avoided calling it a hut. ‘But we will need to remove the furniture.’

Rose was worried that Lordy would injure himself again but he assured her that he would be very careful. A wooden floor would be luxury – but should she allow it? Carpentry was hard work,
particularly
sawing. ‘Can I help you with it?’ She found herself being politely overruled and decided that the English upper classes had not bossed people around for centuries without knowing how to get their own way.

Fortunately, Charlie stayed long enough to help to move the furniture. He giggled when he saw Rose’s sewing basket. ‘Reminds me of those classes we had with the girls at school. Mind, Mrs Teesdale, I can still sew a patch!’

Charlie had also brought some canvas for a makeshift tent. While the improvements were in progress, Rose and Ada should have the cabin and Lordy the tent. While he was sitting on the veranda, Lordy must have planned it all. Rose had never mentioned the trouble she had with the earth floor, the dirt and the dust and the insects. But Lordy had worked out that this was the priority when it came to improvements. If only Luke had seen it.

On the veranda in the evenings, Lordy talked about many things. He had travelled all over the world before he came to Victoria and Rose enjoyed his stories. One night she asked him about the eucy men. ‘Joe’s a villain and I suspect the others may indulge in criminal activities from time to time,’ he said. ‘Stealing cattle, that sort of thing, y’know.’

‘They didn’t look very honest,’ Rose agreed with a shudder. ‘Was that why they meant to frighten me? Or perhaps they just wanted
an excuse to … assault a woman.’ To change the subject she added, ‘But you worked with them on the oil distillery.’

‘The process is fascinating – do you understand it? I rather thought of setting up a distillery myself one day and that was why I worked with them for a time. The cutting is dirty hard work, of course, but no harder than mining.’

Rose thought back to the first time she’d seen Lordy and the other eucy men. They had been dirty, unshaven and carrying sharp knives, a world away from Jasper’s cultivated ways. How had he put up with them? Their treatment of her still made her shiver when she thought of it. They were completely heartless.

‘Wouldn’t the others be annoyed if you set up in competition with them?’ Rose kept thinking of the different ways in which Lordy could be injured and tried to discourage him from taking risks.

‘They are currently operating well to the south of us, near Port Albert, my dear,’ Lordy said with a smile. ‘Took the big tank and all their gear with them. A sensible choice, I feel. One can always leave on the next boat if things get a little too hot. You may not know that a party of black gentlemen was earnestly enquiring as to their whereabouts.’