An Innocent Masquerade

‘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 the only home he had ever known. In his young mind you could go to the diggings and still stay at home. To quieten him, and the little ones who had begun to roar with him, Kirstie gave Pat their scarlet and gold parrot to look after. When that wasn’t enough she sang them songs from back home in England, songs which Ma had used to sing.

‘That’s my good girl,’ Pa had told her quietly. ‘I knew that you’d not let me down.’

When they had reached Melbourne they had found it full of people like themselves, all making for the diggings. There was nowhere to stay or to sleep except in and around the drays whilst they bought further provisions, tents and equipment. The little ones ran wild, dodging in and out among the many tramps who were lying in the street, dead drunk and clutching empty bottles: ruined before they had even reached the diggings.

Two of them were lying where the Moore party was parked in front of The Criterion, Melbourne’s most expensive hotel. One was large with thick dark hair and a long beard and the other was red-headed and small. Both were ragged and smelled evil.

Kirstie sniffed her disgust at the sight of them, while Pa and Bart talked busily with those who seemed to know what ought to be done at the diggings if a fortune were to be made.

‘Just the two of you won’t get anywhere,’ said one burly digger. They were all burly, rough and good-natured, as well as free with their violent language, blinding and bloodying in front of Kirstie as though she were not there. ‘You need to form a small syndicate. A big chap would be best.’

The trouble with taking on a big chap, Sam thought, was that he might see the Moore family, tenderfeet all, as a suitable party for pillaging. Someone less powerful might be safer.

On the morning that they were ready to leave they had still not discovered any extra mates.

‘We’ll try to find someone when we get there,’ said Pa hopefully—he was always full of hope.

They were just hoisting their last load of provisions into Kirstie’s dray when a middle-sized Englishman, looking vaguely ill, came up to them. He was respectably dressed in clerk’s clothing and said diffidently, in a low cultured voice, ‘They told me at the store that you’re off to Ballarat and needed a chum to make up your team. My name is Farquhar, George Farquhar. They call me Geordie here.’

Sam looked sharply at him. He scarcely seemed the sort of chum they needed, but then the stranger said, ‘I can not only drive the dray, I’m good with horses as well. I don’t drink or gamble and I’m stronger than I look. I also have a little spare cash to put in the pot if you’d care to take me on.’

That did it. Bart asked shrewdly, ‘How much spare cash?’

The man said, ‘Enough. I’ll not show you here, too public. If you want a reference, I’ve been working at an apothecary’s for the last three months. I’m steady,’ he added, ‘and they told me that you were steady, too.’

Sam looked him bluntly up and down, and, as usual, made a sudden decision on the spur of the moment.

‘Well, Geordie Farquhar,’ he said, ‘I like the look of you and I’m inclined to take a chance with you. Money in the pot—and join us in the hard work. Just do what you can. Let’s shake on it,’ and he put out his work-calloused hand. Bart followed suit, and the three of them solemnly sealed their bargain.

Geordie proved helpful almost immediately. He persuaded them to stay an extra day and sell one of the drays and buy a horse and wagon—‘It will be more useful than a bullock when we get to the diggings,’ he told them.

‘Except that we can’t eat it,’ Pa said practically.

‘Oh, horse isn’t bad,’ Geordie told them. ‘I’ve eaten horse rather than starve.’

The next morning, when an adventurous young Davie fell out of a tree on one of their earliest stops and broke his arm, Geordie set it for him carefully and patiently.

‘I used to be a doctor,’ he said brusquely when Bart thanked him. ‘It might be helpful in the diggings.’

Back at the farm neither Kirstie nor Sam had thought that when they finally left Melbourne for Ballarat they would be part of a vast exodus of folk walking and riding to the gold fields. With two bullock-drawn drays and the horse and wagon they were among the more affluent of the travellers—although, as Kirstie commented, that wasn’t saying much. They were mostly big, heavily whiskered men, many with pistols thrust into their belts. Some were already drunk, early in the morning though it was.

Pat, indeed, always lively and curious, gave a loud squeal when they passed a scarecrow of a man driving a rackety cart pulled by a spavined horse.

‘Look, Big Sister, look, it’s the two tramps from outside The Criterion. Fancy seeing them here!’

So they were. The little red-headed one was sitting up and looking around him while the big, dark one was lying on his back, eyes closed, a bottle in his hand, dead to the world already.

Kirstie sniffed her disgust at them. ‘Hush, Pat. They might hear you.’

‘Oh, Corny and The Wreck won’t mind. They’re used to people noticing them. Corny says they get more money that way. He’s the little one.’

‘There’ll be more money for them in the diggings, perhaps,’ commented Pa. ‘And you’re not to talk to them, Pat.’

‘Oh, I don’t talk to them. Besides, only Corny talks. The Wreck never says anything. Just looks.’

‘And smells!’ sniffed Kirstie.

‘One thing, though,’ said Geordie later, ‘at least they weren’t trying to cadge a free ride.’

He, Bart and Pa had been compelled to beat off with their whips great hairy ruffians trying to climb in beside them. One bold fellow, stinking of grog, jumped up and thrust his whiskered face at Pa, demanding that he sell him a ride. Pa threw him off, and left him behind in the dirt, hurling curses after them.

Some people were pushing wheelbarrows, full of their possessions, and their little children, some not as old as Herbie, even, were walking behind them. Public houses, inns and sly grog shops, so called because they were not legally licensed, lined the road. One lean-to shed had a sign, ‘Last sly grog shop before the diggings,’ which was a lie since a few miles further along was another with an even bigger sign saying, ‘This really is the last sly grog shop before the diggings.’