This Golden Land (29 page)

     As she threaded her way along the crowded sidewalk toward Victoria Square, she wondered how it was possible that not one of the final three formulas had turned out to be the correct one. She had been so certain that she would have the correct iodine preparation by now. Had she made a mistake along the way and now she must go over them all again? Or was it possible she did not have her father's complete notes?

     Dodging carts and wagons and men on horseback, trying to keep her skirt out of the mud created by a recent autumn shower, Hannah recreated the events of that fateful night two years ago, when Luke Keen had come riding into their yard, to tell them Lady Margaret was in labor. Hannah had been setting the table for supper, she recalled, and her father had been in his small laboratory, working on refining his iodine formula. They had dropped everything and had ridden off through the rain to help the baroness. What had her father done with his notes for that formula?

     Hannah had been using the iodine preparation to wash her hands when she went on maternity calls—a few red drops in a basin of water—but now it was all gone, and without her rigid practice of antisepsis, there was a danger of infecting her patients. But in order to replenish her supply, Hannah needed to recreate her father's experiments until she found the right one. And so she had set up a small laboratory in her room at the Australia hotel, purchasing a few beakers, test tubes, measuring apparatus, a spirit lamp, and her father's microscope, brought from England.

     When she began, shortly after Neal left for the expedition, Hannah was able to ignore many of the experimental trials because her father had noted next to the recipes: "Burns the skin," or "No effect on microbiotes." And as she knew the recipe called for iodine, she was able to set aside yet more of the formulas in the notebook. But in what quantities of iodine, and combined with what other chemicals, she did not know. And so she had worked these past four weeks, mixing and testing. And when she had reached the last of the recipes in the portfolio, she had not found the correct one.

     Krüger Drugs & Chemicals Broker was located between a shop that sold canes, walking sticks, umbrellas and parasols, and a bakery that specialized in "German breads of all kinds." A small bell over the door jingled when Hannah entered.

     Mr. Krüger's shop was crammed with chests of drawers and shelves stocked with bottles, pewter canisters, ointment boxes and apothecary jars—blue and white delftware labeled
sulphuric acid, spirits of lavender, castor oil.
On the long counter were a mortar and pestle with the Rx symbol of pharmacies everywhere, enormous transparent glass jars with leaches swimming in them, brass scales with weights neatly stacked, and two small statuettes of young men in ancient Christian robes: Saints Cosmas and Damien, twin brothers who were physicians and martyrs long ago.

     Hans Krüger, a short round man with a shiny scalp, emerged from the rear of his shop, a smile instantly on his face when he saw Hannah.

     "Ah Fraulein," he said expansively, remembering at the last minute the dinner napkin tucked under his chubby chin. As he slipped into his jacket and straightened his collar, Hannah detected the faint aroma of sausage and sauerkraut in the air.

     "I have your order all ready," he said. Miss Conroy had been coming regularly into his shop to make purchases that were unusual for a lady: chlorine, lye, copper sulfate, ammonium compounds. Mr. Krüger had wondered if perhaps she was working on a new cleaning agent. Everyone was an inventor these days. Adelaide was full of people with new ideas, including a few ladies like Miss Conroy. Adelaide could be a dirty town as trousers and skirts were the target of mud flying from horses' hooves, and ladies in particular lamented their inability to keep skirt hems clean as they were dragged across dusty streets covered in horse droppings. A good cleaning agent would make someone rich.

     "Here you are," he said, and he held out the bottle containing a dark purple solid substance that would dissolve in water or alcohol. "How are the experiments going?" Such a surprise it had been, when he had politely asked during her last visit, what exactly she was working on—many people kept their projects and inventions a secret—and she had told him about a formula for medical antisepsis.

     "I am having difficulty finding the right formula, Mr. Krüger. But I won't give up." Hannah spoke with a confidence that she did not feel. Having concocted and tested all of her father's iodine recipes, and having not found the right one, she faced the daunting task of doing it all again.

     But she
had
to do it. In her nine months of serving the district around the Australia Hotel, Hannah had gained a reputation for being a "clean" midwife, with not a single infected case. It was the reason her practice was growing. She worried that without the iodine formula, her success rate, and her patients, might suffer.

     As she slipped the bottle into her bag, she said, "Have you something for chapped hands?"

     "Surely you are not testing the experimental formulas on yourself!"

     "I'm afraid it's the only way I can judge that a formula is safe for a patient's skin."

     He went to a cupboard and brought back a small jar. "I deal with strong chemicals and I found that this cream helps."

     Such a pretty young lady, he thought as Hannah paid for her purchase. There was a time when Mr. Krüger had wondered if he might introduce
her to his son, a wine merchant just starting out and the same age as Miss Conroy. But as he had gotten to know her, Mr. Krüger had realized that, as charming as she was, and as much as he thought she might make a good daughter-in-law, the midwife from London was a little too smart and educated, and certainly too independent-minded to be happy spending the rest of her life in a kitchen.

     As she left the chemist shop, Hannah looked across the busy street at the news kiosk. This was the real reason she had come into town. To see if there was news of the Oliphant Expedition.

     Although Sir Reginald had tried to keep his great undertaking a secret, word had gotten out, and ambitious reporters had galloped with speed to the base camp near Iron Knob, arriving just as the great group of men, horses and wagons was about to depart. They raced back to report to their respective newspapers, and a few of the more daring journalists hired boats to take them to Streaky Bay, where they hired fast horses, and galloped northward to catch the progress of the expedition that, according to headlines, was "DEFINITELY NOT FOLLOWING EYRE'S ROUTE."

     At the newsstand, a giant map had been posted, with the expedition's movement thus far. Citizens were speculating on where Sir Reginald was headed, and wagers were being placed on the route and time of arrival. But it was a limited game as Sir Reginald's group would soon be beyond all communications and alone in the vast unknown heart of the continent.

     Hannah looked for a break in the traffic before venturing across.

     The newsagent's stand stood on a corner of Victoria Square, a grassy plaza dominated by a statue of the queen herself. The newsagent sold newspapers, magazines, penny gazettes and other periodicals, local and imported—
Punch, The Illustrated London News
, even
New York Monthly Magazine
from America—as well as tobacco, pipes, cigarette papers, matches, confections, books and maps, candles, lanterns, and cheap tins of tea. A newly lettered sign declared in right red letters: "Direct from America. Pre-rolled cigarettes for modern ladies who wish to enjoy the pleasure formerly enjoyed only by men." To the newsagent's pleasant surprise, men were buying them, too.

     Bertram Day, like most colonists, had endured a harrowing ten-month ocean voyage from his native Ireland to come to South Australia in search of a better life. He had arrived in Adelaide dirt poor, and had supported himself at first by selling copies of an Adelaide newspaper on street corners. Then he had the idea to visit the docks each morning and purchase newspapers fresh off arriving ships, to turn around and sell the highly demanded
London Times
at a profit on the street. Mr. Day had then cobbled together a wooden stand in order to display his various periodicals, later adding walls and a roof, and expanding it to hold other goods to sell. He next came up with the idea of renting space on the walls of his stand, for advertising, and was clearing such a profit that Mr. Day had finally been able to afford to get married and now lived in a respectable cottage with a garden and a baby on the way. Everybody knew him and had a good word to say about him. Rumor had it that, back in England, Mr. Day had worked on a horse farm, mucking out stalls, as his father and grandfather had before him.

     He was busy with customers but he managed a smile as Hannah walked around his stand to get to the newspaper notices. She returned his smile. Mr. Day, Hannah had discovered, was a man of good humor. A sign on the wooden crossbeam above his head said, "Yesterday was the deadline for complaints." As she scanned the recently posted front pages, looking for word of Sir Reginald's progress, she was unaware of a certain ruffian watching her with a greedy eye.

     His attention was upon her blue carpetbag.

     It wasn't that the bag itself looked as if it were worth anything, but the way it bulged tempted the dirty-faced boy. And even though the lady herself wasn't dressed grandly, that was no indicator of anything. Folks got rich quickly in this corner of the world, and they found that those who flaunted it became targets, and so lots of rich people went out disguised. The carpetbag didn't fool him. It looked stuffed, and seemed to hang heavy on the lady's arm. He would reckon there was a wealth of treasure in it.

     Hannah was both disappointed and relieved to find no news of Neal's expedition. Perhaps they had traveled too far now for reports—

     She felt something bump against her, and then yank her arm. "Pardon
me," she said, and then she cried out as a ruffian snatched her carpetbag and headed into the park with it.

     "Stop!" she cried, and started after him.

     Five men went in pursuit, shouting after the boy to stop where he was, but he kept running, zig-zagging around pedestrians and horses, glancing back to send his pursuers a cheeky grin. His grin fell when he saw that one of those chasing him, a wiry fellow with quick sprint, was gaining.

     And then the man grabbed the thief by the collar, yanking him off his feet, while onlookers cheered.

     "Thank you," Hannah said to the stranger, her eyes on the carpetbag as he returned with the cursing lad.

     The man pushed the boy toward Hannah and growled, "Apologize to the lady."

     "I'm sorry," the kid grumbled, and then threw the bag at her, causing it to drop and fall open, its contents spilling out. And then the boy ran, shouting curses over his shoulder.

     "I'll get this," the stranger said as he bent to help Hannah with her scattered things. But when he looked up, his eyes widened, his mouth lifting in a grin. "Faith . . ." he said. "It's the midwife, Hannah Conroy."

     Hannah looked up, startled, and saw the familiar weathered face and craggy features, the pale blue eyes that squinted, creating creases at the corners. But she also saw now, in the sunlight, that Jamie O'Brien's nose looked as if it had been broken once, long ago. Not terribly crooked, but not arrow-straight either. She would not say it was a handsome face, yet attractive all the same, in an unconventional way. But it was the eyes that arrested her, as they seemed to watch her with a knowing look beneath the shadow of his hat brim.

     As O'Brien helped gather up the medical instruments, bottles of medicines, bandages, paper and pen and ink, he thought: Hannah Conroy, the pretty little midwife he had come into town to find, and here she was!

     "What's this?" he said as he picked up her stethoscope.

     "It's for listening to the heart."

     The smile turned cocky. "Can it tell if there is love in there?"

     Hannah did not reply. She rose, straightened her skirt, and said, "Thank you again."

     He said nothing as he offered a brash grin. Mr. O'Brien wore the same hat from their encounter in the garden, a wide-brimmed slouch hat made of brown felt with a black band around the crown. But this time his shirt was pale blue chambray, the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and over it, the same black waistcoat with silver buttons. At his waist, the fierce-looking knife sheathed to his belt.

     He seemed in no hurry to accept her thank-you and leave. Pointing to her carpetbag, he said, "That's a lot of medical stuff for a midwife."

     "My father was a doctor," she said. "These were his things. He taught me to use them." When she saw the amused glint in O'Brien's eye, she felt the need to add, "There is no reason why a woman cannot set a bone as well as any man."

     The amusement faded in his eyes as his face took on another, unreadable expression. While people walked around them, ignoring the pair who blocked the path, and while Hannah examined the contents of her carpetbag, making sure everything was there and back in order, trying very had to pay no attention to the outlaw's scrutiny of her, O'Brien reconsidered his plan to persuade Miss Conroy to spend an evening with him.

     Jamie O'Brien had known many women in his thirty-three years. Had loved them and left them and now could not recall a single one of their faces. But Hannah Conroy had remained clear and vivid in his mind from the night of their meeting in a rose garden. And now that she stood here in flesh and blood, on a busy street corner with May sunshine peeking through the clouds threatening to bring autumn rain, he realized that she wasn't like the others.

     She held out her hand. "May I please have the stethoscope?"

     "Here you are, Hannah Conroy." He handed her the instrument, and as she placed it in her carpetbag, slipping it down the side next to a set of medical scissors, she saw the corner of a piece of paper sticking up from a packet of curved suture needles. Wondering what it was, she pulled it out and found herself holding a receipt for shoe repair, from the cobbler on High Street in Bayfield. Turning it over, she received a shock.