Ironbark (21 page)

Keziah introduced herself as Miss Plews and urgently pressed him to rescue the survivors. She hoped her imitation of Saranna's well-bred accent was convincing.

‘One passenger, Mrs Keziah Smith, is dead. An Irish doctor is suffering from shock but the most badly injured is our driver, Jake Andersen. His leg is broken and he's in great pain.'

‘Jake Andersen? He's me best mate! I'll get them to safety, don't you worry, Miss.'

The young man identified himself as Mac Mackie, another Rolly Brothers's coachman.

He took charge of the situation, speaking in a drawled accent that reminded her of Jake. No doubt another Currency Lad. Mac Mackie looked as clumsy as a bear but he moved with speed and delivered his orders to Fingal Mulley and his assigned men with such rough authority that Keziah was confident Jake and O'Flaherty were in good hands.

Intent on avoiding recognition by the publican, Keziah hid herself in the background until Mac headed off at full pelt towards Blackman's Leap.

After discreetly gaining directions to Ironbark from a servant girl, Keziah was about to leave when she was startled to overhear Fingal Mulley giving orders to a stable boy.

‘Wasn't it a young lass who raised the alarm? She must need breakfast, medical attention and transport to wherever she's going. Go and fetch the poor bairn!'

When the stable boy ran off in search of her, Keziah took the opposite direction to retrace her steps to the chestnut horse. It had been easy to identify herself as Saranna Plews to Mac Mackie who had never met
her – she must not risk recognition by those who had.

She desperately needed that work at Ironbark. Now that she was the respectable Saranna Plews she could no longer earn money telling fortunes.

• • •

The servant girl's alternative directions to Ironbark had sounded easy enough to follow. Keziah didn't want to go back over the pass in case she encountered Mac Mackie's rescue party and Dr O'Flaherty recognised her. The girl had assured her the track behind the inn was a short cut that led to a creek crossing, later to the signpost at the turn-off road and from there it was only a stone's throw to Ironbark village.

The reality was a different matter. The narrow track led Keziah into dense bushland. She soon became anxious about the directions. Was
any
distance a short cut in this massive country? Where on earth was that Ironbark signpost?

The storm had ceased as swiftly as it had descended. The sun had passed the point of midday when Keziah dismounted at a creek. The crossing was lined with river stones that lay below the waterline. The creek gurgled joyously as it was sucked between the rocks before rushing downstream.

The babe in her belly reminded Keziah how hungry they both were but she had no idea how to live off the land as she had done along Romani routes. Perhaps the berries here were poisonous or could make you go blind. After drinking her fill of creek water, she remembered Saranna's sealed letter.

Holding it in her hand she weighed up her dilemma. If she didn't open the letter addressed to George Hobson Esquire, she would not know exactly what work Saranna had been engaged to do. Forewarned was forearmed. She read it slowly, phrase by phrase.

‘Mi-duvel!'
she wailed to her god. ‘Hobson hired Saranna to teach his children! Why didn't you arrange for her to be a housekeeper or a cook? I could do that on my ear!'

After shedding hot tears of frustration she admonished herself not to panic.

‘If I fail to arrive they'll send out a search party for their missing governess so I must turn up! This role could be to my advantage. If the Morgans' spies come searching for an illiterate Gypsy, what's the last place they'd think to look for me? A schoolroom!'

With renewed confidence Keziah used a scarf from Saranna's valise to bandage her perfectly sound right hand in a sling. As she rode she dredged up every clue to the dead girl's life that Saranna had confided that night they shared a bed at the inn.

The one thing I don't know is her fiancé's name. Bond or free? Probably a convict. I'll keep quiet about him until I can track him down to deliver poor Saranna's dying words!

• • •

At sunset a glorious blood-orange sun sank below the horizon. Keziah was almost hysterical with relief at the sight of the signpost. ‘Ironbark – One Mile.'

Riding bareback she was drooping with fatigue when she caught sight of the cluster of farm cottages lying on either side of the winding track. Reminding herself that no real lady would ride astride a horse, she dismounted and led the horse past timber huts. Light shone from the windows and smoke curled from stone chimneys against the darkening sky.

She stopped a young shepherd boy who was herding a flock of sheep along the road.

‘Could you please direct me to Ironbark Farm, lad?'

He gawked at her. Wordlessly he pointed to a wide gate beyond the short wooden bridge that crossed a sliver of creek.

In the distance a large sprawling homestead was set well back from the road. The barefoot boy ran to open the gate for her. He stared at her as if he'd seen a ghost, closed the gate behind her then shooed his sheep towards a rundown farmhouse.

‘Anyone would think he had the devil at his heels. Who does he think I am?'

By the time she reached Ironbark Farm it was already the dark of night. Her feet ached, her empty belly grumbled, the babe seemed to be nudging her for food, and she felt dirty and dishevelled.

As she led the horse to the water trough, a wedge of light sliced the darkness when the farmhouse door flew open. A bearded man in a nightshirt appeared like a biblical prophet crying out in a booming Cornish accent, ‘Miss Plews, is it?'

Keziah remembered to assume Saranna's well-bred manner. ‘Yes. There's been a terrible accident, Sir. Our coach plunged over Blackman's Leap.'

She allowed herself to fall in a convincing half-faint at his feet.

‘Here, Polly! Help Miss Plews. Fetch her food and drink and anything else the lady requires.'

Polly jerked her head in the direction of a hut a short distance from the main house. ‘I fixed it up like you said, Sir. But maybe the back bedroom in your house—?'

‘Certainly not! That would be most improper, what with no mistress in residence. Make Miss Plews comfortable in the overseer's hut. When Griggs returns I'll tell him he's to bunk down in the hayloft for the time being.'

Keziah noticed the girl's cheeky grin when she muttered, ‘Lord, Griggs won't half be shirty about that!'

Polly was short, freckle-faced and wore a mob-cap and pinafore. Keziah was genuinely grateful to lean on the girl's shoulder.

The one-room hut's exterior walls were built of horizontal rough-hewn logs but the interior, despite the packed earth floor, was clean and furnished with a wooden bunk bed, table, chest of drawers and mirror. The room smelled as if it had been scrubbed with kerosene and the only sign that the hut was usually a man's domain was the razor strap hanging from a hook on the wall beside the washbasin.

Polly chattered away as she lit the hurricane lamp, turned back the covers of the bed and laid out towels and soap.

‘Can I give you a hand to get undressed, Miss?'

Keziah tried to disguise her alarm. She must conceal the shape of her belly.

‘Thank you, no. I can manage, but I
am
a trifle hungry …'

Before she had time to finish the sentence, Polly had bolted out the door. She returned within minutes bearing a tray with bread and butter, a wedge of red-rimmed cheese, a plate heaped with slices of cold mutton, two blushing pears and a large teapot, sugar and milk – all served on blue and white floral china.

Keziah thanked Polly, closed the door behind her then wolfed down the first real meal she had eaten in two days.

‘What bliss!' She savoured every morsel, grunting with pleasure. The mutton was tender, the bread fresh, the cheese an echo of the best Cheshire cheese she'd ever tasted. The golden pears dripped so much juice she licked her fingers to capture every last drop.

‘Thank heavens I don't need to practise Saranna's ladylike manners when I'm alone! Tomorrow I'll have to peck like a bird in public.'

When the teapot was empty she rolled on the bed to test how soft the mattress was. She buried her face in the fresh bed linen which gave off the faint, sweet scent of lavender. Two plump pillows. A patchwork quilt. Soap and plenty of water. What a windfall. She couldn't stop smiling – until she was suddenly sobered by the thought of Saranna's corpse waiting to be buried.
By rights she should be here, not me.

Keziah prayed to
The Del
for the girl's soul. Then thanked her god for the gift of her new life. She looked through the window at the moon as she prayed to
Shon
for Gem's safety. The Romani proverb comforted her. ‘There's a sweet sleep at the end of a long road.'

She kicked off her shoes, stripped down to her petticoat and sank across the bed. Tomorrow she faced a large amount of sewing to alter Saranna's clothes to fit her growing belly.

Prompted by that vision in the English graveyard of the tiny barefoot boy wearing summer clothing, she spoke wearily to the child inside her. ‘I guess to be born in this strange land will make you different to me and Gem. You'll be a Currency Lad like Jake Andersen.'

As she began to slip into the folds of a dream she thought of the way Jake had nuzzled his face into her naked breast, of the agony in his voice when he begged his Jenny to come home to him. The words of her prayer came softly.

‘May your
gaujo
god protect you, Jake. And may we both find our true loves.'

Ironbark Farm sounded alive with activity when Keziah awoke the next morning in the wattle and daub hut, startled by a peal of strange, raucous laughter. She instinctively protected her belly then ran to the window to investigate.

On the highest branch of a pine tree sat a strange bird with a coat of brown-speckled feathers and a plump white chest. His head was unduly large for a squat body. His beak reminded her of the cutting shears her father had sharpened on a grinding wheel for farmers' wives.

The bird's laughter was the most amazing sound as if he ridiculed all the follies of mankind. Keziah decided to adopt these birds as a good luck totem in her new life because her grandmother had taught her laughter was the cure for many ills.

When Polly entered bearing a tray, Keziah hastily wrapped Saranna's blue cloak around herself.

The girl's skinny build and sharp, pinched features suggested they were the legacy of generations of poverty and poor diet, but Polly's youthful vitality triumphed over her lack of conventional prettiness. Her accent was a strange mixture of Cockney with an overlay of the Currency drawl.

‘G'day Miss, here's your breakfast. I thought you might be too poorly to get up.'

‘I'm fine now.' She held out her hand. ‘My friends call me Saranna.'

Polly hesitated in surprise then shook the hand offered to her. ‘Polly Doyle, Miss. I'm a Transport. Been assigned to Mr Hobson two years.'

‘He's a good master to you?' Keziah asked.

‘I get well fed. Other overseers sell the government stores meant for
us and pocket the brass. But Hobson makes his overseer Griggs, the pig, do right by us.' Polly relaxed. ‘I know you came free, Miss. Where from, if I might be so bold?'

Keziah stopped herself from saying North Wales. She had to lay full claim to Saranna's world, completely discarding her own. Fortunately her clan had travelled through Chester and she had often
dukkered
there. ‘Chester. You know it?'

‘No, I'm a true Cockney, born within the sound of Bow Bells. When I got transported I felt I'd been swept out of the gutter but there's
some
good things here in God's rubbish dump.'

Keziah held back a grim smile. This was the same solution the
gaujo
magistrates employed to rid England of Romani ‘vagabonds' like Gem.

Polly rattled on. ‘The colony's good for young 'uns. Ma lost three of 'em to croup in our ruddy London winters!'

‘I know. It is – it
must be
terrible to lose a babe,' Keziah said, reminded of Saranna's single status. Her gaff was camouflaged by screeching laughter from her totem bird.

Polly explained it was a laughing jackass that the blackfellas called a kookaburra.

Keziah was impressed when the plump bird spread his wings and swooped on a snake, then repeatedly dropped its prey from the top branch of a pine tree until the snake's back was broken.

‘He's certainly clever at living off the land.' She tried to make her question sound casual. ‘How many children does Mr Hobson have?'

‘Two little boys. The missus died of the scarlet fever last year.'

‘The nearest neighbours?' Keziah asked.

‘His partner, Joseph Bloom, a Hebrew. Odd chap. A bachelor. Just got himself a new assigned housekeeper. No doubt she keeps his bed warm as well as his dinner.' Polly flushed. ‘No offence, Miss. It's just the way of the world down here.'

‘None taken,' Keziah assured her.

‘Gawd! Clean forgot. Mr Hobson wants to see you when you is
ready.' Polly ran out the door.

Keziah pinned up her hair and spoke to the face reflected back in the mottled old mirror. ‘Listen, Saranna Plews, just spin a good story.'

She patted her belly. ‘Your father's the real bastard, not you. I won't let you down!'

Dressed in Saranna's best clothes but unable to button up the tight jacket, she assessed her appearance. It was funny what a difference
gaujo
clothes made. Today she could easily pass for Italian or Spanish.

She angled her inherited bonnet to counteract its prim look. Accepting the path
baxt
had chosen her to travel, she was determined to bluff her way into the job of governess to Hobson's two little boys.