An Innocent Masquerade

They were silent for a little until Tom said, hope in his voice, ‘Everything here reminds him of the past, so perhaps a change of scene might help. He sees Bethia around every corner. I could send him to Melbourne. Since the gold rush, it has turned into a major centre. He can look into our interests there, invest in the new railway and find out where else we can expand. We don’t want Dilhorne’s to be left behind. He’s still a superb businessman; it’s all he seems to care for—which isn’t enough.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Hester, her face sad. She had already lost one son to distant England and did not like to see the other disappear, even if only inside Australia, but Thomas’s needs came first. Hard though it was, it was time that he broke with the past. Bethia was gone, and grieving would not bring her back.

Thomas was seated alone at table the next morning when his father came in. Tom sat down in front of the giant Japanese screen which ran the entire length of the room. A rampaging tiger charged across it in full view of Thomas.

Tom poured himself tea. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said abruptly.

‘Never,’ said his son, affection for once in his voice.

‘I’m in my early seventies, I reckon,’ continued Tom, who was not sure of his exact age. ‘I don’t want to gallivant about these days. With this gold strike in Victoria and the new railway being projected, as well increased trade in shipping, one of us should go to Melbourne and, with Jack away in Macao, I think it ought to be you.’

‘No,’ said Thomas firmly. ‘I don’t want to leave Sydney.’

‘A proper old woman you’re becoming,’ said his father. ‘Set in your ways. Do you good to go to Melbourne.’

‘I don’t need to be done good to,’ returned Thomas coldly. ‘I’m sick of you and Mother nannying me about. I’m a grown man. Leave me to my own ways or I’ll go back to my old home with Lachlan.’

‘Nannying, is it?’ said his father in his irritatingly equable manner. ‘Seems to me that a grown man who doesn’t want to adventure out a bit needs nannying.’

Thomas looked at his father with acute distaste, inwardly defying him. Why can’t he leave me alone? This is the second time that he has suggested sending me away. Can’t he understand that I shall lose Bethia all over again if I lose the places where we were happy together…places where I can remember her beautiful bluey-green eyes? He remained mute with something that was almost like rage.

‘I’ve never given you an order,’ said Tom, ‘not since you were a lad. But I’m giving you one now. You need a holiday or a change of air. Go to Melbourne. Look things over for the firm. Take it easy, enjoy yourself, have some fun. See life a bit—why not, you’ve never really spread your wings? Let yourself go.’

‘Drink, gamble, brawl and find a woman or two while I’m at it. Is that what you’re suggesting, Father?’

Thomas’s voice was as offensive as he could make it, and his expression was an angry glare. ‘Roister about, like you and Alan did? Horseplay and similar folly. It’s not how I wish to live, and you should know that by now. Or would you prefer me to go the way my grandfather Fred Waring went? A fine example he was before drink, whores and play did for him…’

His father said, a trifle wearily, ‘Oh, yes, I know you, and what I know doesn’t make me happy.’

His son interrupted him. ‘I’m not interested in your happiness, Father. Have you told Mother that you think that I should go off and live the life of a debauchee? A fine piece of advice for an old man to give his grown-up son!’

Tom leaned back in his chair, the running tiger’s head visible behind him. They both shared the same expression of intense irony and predatory determination.

‘You’re a self-righteous sanctimonious prig such as I never thought to have for a son, aren’t you? A damned arrogant swine who thinks only of himself, never of those about him who love and care for him.

‘Poor Lachlan might as well not have a father for all the notice you take of him. It’s in your mind, not mine, that pleasure is associated with debauchery. You must have a fine old sewer swilling about inside you to make you come out with that.’

There was no way that you could put down or annoy his father. He should have known that. He could insult his son with such calmness that the red rage inside Thomas, the rage which he had never known he possessed until Bethia had died, almost burst its bounds.

His usually calm face was twisted and purple. He rose, flinging his napkin down.

‘So, that’s what you think of me. I might have known. It’s not enough for me to live a decent life but you have to twit me with it. Yes, I’ll go to Melbourne, do my duty, and work for the firm just to get away from you. I shan’t tell Mother of your preposterous suggestions and I’m not about to see life as you so charmingly put it. I’ve seen it all in Sydney and it doesn’t attract. I’d as lief crawl around in the gutter.’

He stalked to the door, where he turned to confront his father again. Tom had not moved. His expression was as pleasant and cool as though they had been exchanging polite words over afternoon tea.

‘Your duty? Oh, yes, your duty. By all means,’ said his father drily, his expression still unchanged. ‘I can see that that is what everything has shrunk down to. Yes, I’ll be in the counting house later and talk to you then.’

‘Of business—and nothing else,’ Thomas flung at him. The heavy door shut behind him with a tremendous crash.

Temper, temper, thought Tom mildly. Not really perfect, are we, for all our protestations.

All that day, while preparations were being made for his journey to Melbourne, Thomas was glacially correct to his father, to such a degree that even the clerks commented on it.

His manner remained the same that evening. Before he retired to bed his mother, who had been told of his coming departure, kissed him, saying, ‘You will be careful, Thomas. I understand that Melbourne is a dangerous place these days.’

‘You may depend upon it, Mother. Your advice is always sound, unlike Father’s, which I shall not be taking,’ and he flung out of the room, banging the door behind him for the second time that day.

‘Now what was all that about?’ asked Hester after he had gone.

‘I merely suggested to him this morning that he enjoy himself a little in Melbourne while he is there and he behaved as though I had told him to go straight to the devil.’

‘Oh, dear! That was bad of him—but you know what he’s like these days.’

‘Yes, I do know what 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.’