Chapter Seven
It was still dark when John Bellue teased the horses to a fast trot. Quickly, the buggy, piled high with cases and tea chests, they raced through the deserted city streets. Roxy, sitting next to her father, glanced eagerly around. Her eyes were bright with excitement and her cheeks, just visible in the street-corner lamplight, were two high spots of colour.
They rolled through the countryside, past farmhouses tucked away against sides of dark hills. The buggy lamps cast a faint light ahead, highlighting the contours of the road. As dawn neared, the sky became a shimmer of pale blue shredded with streamers of pink.
John took his fob watch from his pocket and studied the time. According to Roxy, Guy’s steamer was due to leave at six o’clock, in half an hour. By his calculations Goolwa was still almost an hour’s ride away. He had planned to leave earlier but Felicite had fidgeted and fussed, as though trying to delay their departure. There had been cups of tea to consume, followed by inevitable tears. He thought of his wife, remembering how she stood at the front of the house as the horses pulled away, waving, a handkerchief held to her face. Now they were late. Impatiently he jerked at the reins, hurrying the horses along.
They arrived at the wharf just in time to see the Curlew and her barge rounding the bend in the river, a fine mist of steam hanging over the water in its wake. John pulled the horses to a halt and stared at the retreating form of the paddle-steamer.
‘Well,’ said Roxy angrily, ‘nice of him to wait.’ She turned to her father, pointing towards a thicket of trees on the left. ‘There’s a track over there that follows the river. Perhaps we can catch them if we hurry.’
John urged the horses forward. As they sped along, the rear of the steamer alternatively materialised and disappeared between the trees. Slowly they seemed to be gaining. Finally, the buggy drew alongside the Curlew and he waved his hat madly. A piercing whistle sent a flock of ducks fluttering skywards and the paddles slowed, thrashing noisily at the surface of the water as the steamer headed for the bank. One of the crew threw a plank and then helped Roxy to board.
Guy bounded down the steps from the wheelhouse looking murderous. His dark eyes shone, twin lamps of fury. ‘I told you to be here on time,’ he said in a low voice, his lips scarcely moving. ‘We waited almost half an hour and now I’m behind schedule.’
John Bellue held his hand forward. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Dumas, it’s my fault, I’m afraid.’
Ignoring the outstretched hand, Guy moved sideways. ‘Come on, you chaps, lend a hand to load all this luggage,’ he shouted to the men who had gathered at the side of the Curlew to watch the proceedings. ‘Haven’t got all day,’ he added as though for good measure, casting a dark look in Roxy’s direction.
The suitcases disappeared in the direction of the cabins. The tea chests, containing the carefully wrapped wedding presents, sat on the paddle-steamer’s deck. Guy looked moodily at the mound. ‘Don’t know where we’re going to put this lot,’ he grumbled. ‘Can’t stay there and you won’t fit any more in the cabin. The rest will have to be stored on the barge.’
‘But they’re my things,’ cried Roxy, setting her mouth stubbornly.
‘I think you had better let Mr Dumas do as he suggests,’ John said placatingly as he glanced from his daughter’s tight-lipped face towards Guy’s thunderous expression, sensing that the battle lines already drawn. Martin’s brother was obviously not going to make any special allowances for having a woman on board. John bent down and kissed his daughter firmly on the cheek. ‘You’ll soon be in your new home. Plenty of time then to unpack your belongings, I’m sure.’
Guy tipped his cap. ‘Good day, Mr Bellue,’ he said, indicating that the conversation was over and he wanted to be on his way. ‘I’ll make sure that your daughter is delivered safely to Wirra Downs.’
John Bellue waited on the river bank as the huge paddles at the side of the Curlew started to turn once more, slowly at first, then moving faster, faster, sending muddy brown water foaming out behind. Gradually the steamer drew away, the barge lumbering along behind. Roxy stood at the railing, her face white, waving tentatively. Smoke poured from the funnel. The throb of the engines echoed on and on, rebounding against the gangling gums. A farewell blast of the whistle sent a flock of galahs shrieking from the nearby trees.
He stood there until the Curlew rounded the next bend and was suddenly out of sight. Blankly he stared at the deserted river and considered how the day, begun so unassumingly in those pre-dawn hours that now seemed like half a lifetime ago, had become a blended image, bitter-sweet, a mixture of beginnings and endings. Here was Roxy embarking on a new and exciting life of her own as the wife of Martin Dumas and mistress of Wirra Downs. He should have been happy for her. He was, wasn’t he?
As he sighed and turned towards the empty buggy an inexplicable sense of sadness swept over him. He wanted to cry out, to call Roxy’s name, but behind him the river lay empty. The steamer was long gone. Nothing remained to tell of its presence except the fading chuff, chuff, chuff of the engine and the wash sucking and slapping at the banks of the river.
*
The Curlew, as Roxy soon discovered, was no luxury passenger steamer. Each working day started at four o’clock. The cook, known to the rest of the crew as The Poisoner, brewed a huge pot of tea while steam was being raised in the engines that were housed beneath the cabins. By four-thirty, the paddles were turning, propelling the boat through the water. Inevitably, a flurry of disturbed birds – ducks, swans or pelicans – took protesting to the air. Overhead the stars still blinked in the pale sky.
Early morning was the time Roxy liked most of all. There was a calmness, a stillness about the river, the water stretching away glass-like, bathed in a thin mist. She often sat at her window as the steamer pulled away from the bank, a shawl pulled loosely around her shoulders. The paddles foamed the water and with each thrust she imagined herself being drawn closer to the unknown: Bourke, Wirra Downs and Maggie Dumas.