Mary Brock Jones Page 9

  If she said the words loudly enough, she might just come to believe them.

  She seemed to have convinced Philip at least. “So you don’t want to leave me and go back to him?”

  She managed a shake of her head. He grabbed her in a hug such as he hadn’t given her since still in short coats. “ Not need my family? I’ve been so scared of losing you, too. Every man needs a home, and my big sister has been making me one since before I can remember.” He released her and stood back, his hand still on her shoulders. “Friends still?”

  “Always, little brother.”

  The smile she had been unable to resist ever since he was a baby lit up his face. “Then let’s finish getting you safely established so I can get back to making our fortune. Come on, Sis, don’t dawdle.”

  For the first time in a long while, Nessa found herself thoroughly in sympathy with her brother.

  An hour later, the charitable glow had vanished. “What do you mean, I must have a suitable chaperone?” She should never have pointed out to Philip the realities of life here. “I’ve never had one before.”

  “And look at the types with whom you rub shoulders.”

  She looked sideways at her brother. No, he had not suddenly grown a beard and grey hair. He just sounded that way.

  “Mrs Campbell is a perfectly respectable woman and offered me a tidy, clean room of my own.”

  “In return for you acting as her servant.”

  “Helping out with running the household is not being her servant. It’s just doing what is needed. The woman has five children, including a wee baby, and a husband to care for. She needs a hand.”

  “Well, my sister will not be providing it. We will find you a situation more like you had with the Johnstons.”

  Nessa was about to retort: did he think she had not lifted a finger to help there? then thought better of it. The sooner she got Philip out of town and properly occupied hunting for gold, the better for them both. What she would really like is to join her tent with Maggie’s next door and get on with her life. She liked what she had seen of her hard-working and cheerful neighbour, and she certainly was experienced enough to manage on her own. How she would love the independence of it.

  But she and Philip were already as near to blows as ever they had come. They had both had to deal with the life their father left them, and Philip had no need to feel guilty for their situation, but this new urge he had to protect had to be part of his emerging manhood, she guessed. If he needed to suffocate her with his care, Nessa must let him. She stifled a weary sigh. Patience, she told herself.

  By the middle of the next day, her patience was wearing decidedly thin.

  “Why don’t we seek out a parson or doctor or town official? Someone must know of a respectable lodging,” she made herself ask quietly.

  “We’ve asked every respectable person in this town.”

  Nessa literally bit her tongue. An itinerant gambler, a smooth talking salesman and a dour, disapproving woman did not make for all the respectable people in the busy township. They were merely the only ones who spoke the Queen’s English in a manner of which Philip approved. In the same, clipped manner he did.

  It took a great deal of effort to keep from retorting further, no matter how useless it would be. “Let me make you some lunch, then I have to get down to fix up my new office area,” she said instead.

  She slipped over to Maggie’s shortly afterwards, on the pretext of needing some pepper for lunch. “He’s driving me mad, Maggie. You have to find me someone to stay with that Philip will approve—only until he leaves town, then I can organise something that truly suits me.”

  The other cackled in laughter. She had a parcel of young brothers of her own back home. “Leave it to me.”

  “You are a saviour. How long will it take?”

  “This very afternoon be soon enough for you?”

  Nessa could only hug her gratefully. Maggie’s speech might be rough, her background not one it was wise to ask about, but to Nessa she was solid gold.

  Maggie was true to her word. No sooner had Nessa and Philip arrived in her office that afternoon to set up her desk and writing paraphernalia than a large and undoubtedly formidable-looking woman bustled in the shop door, demanding, in a voice that could have come direct from Belgravia, to see the young lady in need of lodgings. Nessa bit down hard on her grin, recognising the cheap material under the dark and respectable coat. The woman might look like a lady, but her business, Nessa would swear, was far otherwise. Fortunately, Philip saw nothing amiss and walked forward, holding out his hand in welcome.

  “Philip Ward, at your service, ma’am. It’s my sister here who is in need of safe lodgings while I am out at the diggings.”

  Nessa thought for a moment the woman was going to betray herself. Her undoubtedly handsome brother was wearing the pleased smile that brought out the best in him. She hurried forward, curtseying to their visitor as if in a drawing room. It surprised the woman enough to make her remember her role, and she gave a quelling nod back.

  “Miss Ward. Happy to make your acquaintance. I am Mrs Matilda Fleming.”

  “Ma’am,” murmured Nessa. Maggie had excelled herself. Mrs Fleming was somewhere in her thirties, she guessed, but it was difficult to say. The hard glint that never entirely left her eyes said they had not seen easy years. Philip would have been shocked if he had any idea of the truth. But the woman was well used to bewitching naive young men. Her matronly and autocratic manner fooled Philip completely.

  Within minutes, it was arranged that Mrs Fleming should take Miss Ward to show her the lodgings and, no, there was no need for Mr Ward to trouble himself. He must have many more important tasks to attend to if he intended to leave for the diggings on the morrow. She had her manservant right outside and promised faithfully to return Miss Ward to the store within a half hour at most.

  The eagerness of the storeowner to accommodate Mrs Fleming only added to the illusion. She must be one of his best customers, surmised Nessa. In short order, she and the redoubtable madam were out the door and down the street, leaving Philip happily marching into a general goods store to stock up for the diggings. Behind Mrs Fleming walked the largest men Nessa had ever seen.

  “My man, Joe,” was all Mrs Fleming introduced him as.

  For the first time, she began to wonder just what she had got herself into.

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me out in this ruse, Mrs Fleming.”

  “Not a bit of it, dearie.” The frigid language of Mayfair disappeared as easily as it had been assumed. “Maggie Smith is one of my oldest and dearest friends. You should have seen her in her heyday.” Nessa didn’t enquire further. “So you need a place to stay? Not that I wouldn’t mind taking you on, if you wanted better work than that dreary desk of yours. A right pretty lass you be, and I know a power of men who would be lining up to do business with you. Or wed you,” she added glumly.

  “I’ve had quite enough of that already—men with weddings on their mind, I mean. Is that all a man here thinks of, when he’s not dreaming of gold?”

  “Call me Tildie. Everyone else does. Ain’t answered to Fleming for a long time. And as for the Missis, well, between you and me, that’s a trap I don’t never plan to take on. As for the men here…” She sighed, pausing not a step in her determined stride. “It’s a hard life chasing the gold. A man needs a hot meal and a warm bed at the end of the day. Once the bairns come, well, a man has more reason to work hard then. It’s them that makes their fortunes, not the young ones who care for naught but the glitter of the dream and how to spend it.”

  “Like your clients?”

  The woman chuckled, nodding in agreement, but then turned serious, halting her onward march and turning to face Nessa. “You seem a good-hearted girl, so I’ll give you some advice for free. And that’s something not many can say they’ve got out of Tildie Fleming.

  She took a breath, looking back down the street to where Philip was haggling with a merchant. “You
r brother there. I’ve seen too many of his like before. He won’t settle to work yet, not that one. There will always be a bigger strike over the next hill calling him. Forever traipsing after him, that’s what you’ll have, and that’s no life for you. Next time a good man asks you to wed him, just be plumb grateful and say yes.”

  “My brother needs me.”

  “You needn’t put that hoity look on your face, neither. I ken well it’s your business what you do, but I been dealing with prigs like him since you were but a bairn in ringlets, and I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t know already. Word I hear is that Mr John Reid of Bald Hill, no less, is mighty interested in your well-being. A sensible young lady would get her brother to hop skip her back there and get that man hog-tied before some other woman snatches him up. Those run holders, them’s the ones will be right and dandy once all this madness is done and gone, you mark my words.”

  This was the strangest conversation Nessa had ever had.

  “Mr Reid has been kind to two strangers in need. That is all.”

  Tildie Fleming leaned over and tilted Nessa’s face by the chin to study it. Nessa was too startled to protest. Then the women released her, seemingly having found what she sought in her face.

  “Well enough then,” she muttered, then changed the subject completely. “Now, let’s see about getting you settled.” She set off again, turning into the next street heading to the hill, away from the lake and the raucous town centre. “Not far to go now.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t mean to bother you further. I can find something for myself.”

  “In this town? Don’t be a fool, girl. Maggie and me, we’ve got it all organised. If you can agree to pay a bit by way of board each week and help out with the littl’uns, why, you’d be doing us a right favour. Our Jenny’s man is not what she deserved. Good enough, and gentle as all can be, but not a doer, no. Won’t ever amount to much here, that one. She could do with a bit of extra coming in and a woman’s help, sure to God.”

  Before Nessa could say anything, she was hurried up the street. In short fashion, she found she was the proud occupant of her own bed in the annexe of a small canvas and wood hut on the edge of town, and was putting at ease a shy young woman with the rural speech of middle England and a horde of little children plucking at her skirts. The girl was younger again than Nessa and seemed unable to make the children do a single thing she wished. Nessa looked over the head of the young mother at Tildie Fleming and nodded her agreement. This child-woman needed help, and Nessa was it, it seemed. Though she suspected she would be only too glad to escape to her desk in town and the translation business she hoped would soon be thriving.

  For not the first time, it struck her what a wealth of riches her parents had left her in the education and knowledge she had gained in her unusual childhood. Not many others would agree, granted, but she had been blessed by her parents in their own unique way. She sent them a silent prayer of quiet memory and thanks—and a plea to watch over her here. She was going to need it.

  Chapter 8

  “She’s what?” John was tired, frustrated and in no mood for listening to gossip.

  “Taken lodgings with Tildie Fleming,” the packer went on, smugly spouting his nonsense. “Leastways, according to Mat Parker, who just rode in, who got it from old Davy, who heard it from…”

  “Tildie Fleming! The most notorious madam on the fields?”

  “Her brother insisted she be lodged with someone respectable-like, it seems. And Tildie, now, well, she can sound right hoity when she puts her mind to it.”

  “So I’ve heard.” John glared at the man lounging indolently in his stable door. “Get yourself and your horse fed then be on your way. And I better not hear this pack of lies making the rounds, you hear me?”

  “Whatever you say, Guv. I’m sure the young lady is all right.”

  “Not when I get there, she won’t be,” muttered John, stalking out of the building and marching down to the Coopers’ home.

  “And how long have you been back on this farm since last you left?” Ada Cooper glared at John as he snapped out his next order. “Bob here is only one man, if you haven’t noticed. He can’t do the work of a whole crew.”

  “Last night, and Bob can cope”

  “Leave it be, Ada,” said Bob quietly from his chair by the fire, blessedly quiet otherwise as John stalked from one end of the room to the other, all calm lost.

  Ada was not so considerate. “Don’t expect me to stand by and watch you work your way into an early grave, Bob Cooper. There’s hay to be got in and that field waiting to be ploughed for the planting next week. Leastways that’s what you was telling me last night.”

  “It’ll be done.”

  “By who? You, on your own? What with young Jimmy going off with the gold nuggets in his eyes, you be all that’s left. And you with all the bloom of youth in you still.”

  That was news to John, banging into an offending chair and sending it flying. “When did Jimmy leave?” he growled.

  Ada wasn’t about to back down, no matter how black his mood. “Yesterday afternoon, just before you got back in. And he won’t be the last, as you well know. The gold fever gets all these young boys we take on. My Bob can’t do everything around here.”

  John stopped his frantic pacing. He stood clutching the back of the chair is if to an anchor. “Ada, didn’t you hear me? She’s gone to live with Tildie Fleming!”

  “And you, my lad, have a farm to run.”

  A wee Cooper boy poked his head in the door, took one look at his mother’s face and scuttled out again. Bob twitched in his chair as if wishing he could do the same; but his wife had not finished with his boss yet.

  “I spent a day with that young lady, and you should be right ashamed of yourself, laddie. If she is at Tildie’s she will have good reason. Nor will she have done it blind. That brother of hers may be a right lummox, but Miss Nessa’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

  John harrumphed, but wasn’t ready to give in yet. Not with this tight knot of fear coiling in his belly.

  Bob coughed. “Best listen to my Ada, lad. It’s a good week’s travel from here to Queenstown. The lass cannot come to more harm if you wait a few days longer. That hay must be got in if the animals are to get through the winter, and Ada’s right. I can’t do it all mesel’.”

  John glared at him, hating the truth of Bob’s words.

  “Or is it that you don’t truly trust the lassie?” added Ada slyly, sealing it. Not that John would give her the satisfaction of honouring her with a reply.

  “Get that tea down you, if you must, then meet me in the paddock,” he flung at Bob then marched out the door.

  It was a full week before he had caught up with enough work to be able to leave the farm. Only the thought that he needed a home to bring Nessa to got him through each day. But nothing helped in the long stretches of the night as one bitter picture after another battered at his resolution. The sun had barely risen on the day he finally knew he could leave before he was up on his horse, galloping out of the gate and down the long track to the inland fields.

  If he could have, he would have kept up his mad pace all the way to Queenstown. The land denied him that luxury. There was the wait for the ferry across the turbulent Molyneux, the miles of hard walking on steep, rocky and treacherous tracks, the winding in narrow file through rocks, up steep passes and through twisting gorges. At this time of year, the sun still lingered long into the grey twilight, and John pushed on as late into evenings as he dared, rising again from his bedroll at the first light of day to set out again. If it were not for his horse’s needs, he wouldn’t have stopped at all. His mount learnt to quickly snatch at mouthfuls of tussock grass as they rode along, so grudgingly did John spare him time to graze.

  On the last night on the road, John lay on the hard ground, sheltered by a small bluff and the tall native grasses just off the track, and listened to the snuffling as his horse finished the last of the mash he had brought with hi
m then snorted into the water of the small creek running beside them. It was a big, strong-hearted beast. He should feel guilty for pushing the animal so hard—he who would have verbally flayed any man of his who drove his mount as hard. But he had other priorities. He fixed his eye on the stars above, fighting to keep at bay the nightmarish images.

  Nessa in a crowded room with all the scum of the fields leering at her, Nessa fighting off a man. Worst of all, Nessa wearing the false smile of the bar room, welcoming a man in. It couldn’t happen. He had known her so briefly, but even five minutes with her was enough to recognise the deep core of integrity that ruled her. Whatever anyone might say, Nessa Ward would not go willingly into the pay of a Tildie Fleming.

  But what about unwilling? What would she do to protect that worthless brother of hers? Almost anything, whispered the demon in his head.

  He gave up the useless struggle to sleep and went to check on the horse. “Hey, boy,” he said, soothing the horse’s starts as he appeared silently beside it. The horse lifted its head, then put its nose back to its dinner, as if deliberately reminding its rider of the day’s trials. “I know. Life’s hard. For both you and me, old fellow.”

  John stood a while, hand laid on the bay’s shoulder as if seeking to absorb the calm pragmatism of the animal. After a while, the horse finished its mash and relaxed into the night’s peace. “Get some sleep,” he murmured to it and moved back to his hard blanket on the ground. He wished he could do the same.

  At first light, he was off again. He was nearly there, only a few hours travel remained from the steep pass where he had lain last night, over the flats around the inland lake, and he would be at the growing new town where Nessa waited.

  John had not visited Lake Wakatipu since the previous autumn, before the madness of gold fever had descended. He had come to buy some sheep from Rees, the run holder on this remote country. At that time, all that was here was a farmhouse and outlying buildings, surrounded by a vast emptiness. Stark hills rose on the far side of the lake, with the wide flats of the basin and shoreline on this side.