I reminded him that I was already acquainted with the three Rs. I also knew how to talk and act like a lady and did so except when I lost my temper.
“Well, you see Nora, you’re too young just as yet. You stay behind for a while. I’ve found a good school where they’ll look after you and in next to no time I’ll be back. We’ll be millionaires and start enjoying life. What would you like to do? Where would you like to go? There’s no limit. We can start making plans without delay. The fortune is as good as in our pockets.”
He convinced me as he always could and he persuaded me to go to Danesworth House.
“Only a few months, Nora. Then … all the money in the world. Everything you can wish for.
Now what will you have to start with? “
I said: There are lots of people looking for this gold. Sup pose it takes years for you to find it? “
“I tell you, Nora, I have the Midas touch.”
“I could be your housekeeper. I could cook for you, look after you.”
“What! My millionaire daughter! No. We’re going to have someone to look after us … for ever more. No more partings. No more intruders.
That’ll be the day. And all you have to do is wait awhile at Danesworth House while I go and get the gold. “
That was how he talked, forcefully, persuasively and so vividly that we were able to live in our imaginations through all the extravaganza he planned for us.
So I went to school and he sailed across the world; and every day I waited for the letter which would tell me that he had found his fortune and that we were millionaires.
School was just a tiresome bore. I was less in awe of Miss Emily and Miss Grainger than most of their pupils. I was good at my work; I avoided trouble; I was not interested in school girl mischief. I only lived for the summons. I used to picture how it would come. In a letter perhaps: “Come to Australia at once.” Or perhaps he, who loved surprises, would come to the school to take me away. There would be a summons to the study; and there in that cold add room he would be standing; he would catch me up in his arms to the astonished disapproval of Miss Emily or Miss Grainger for which he would care nothing and he would shout: “Pack your bags, Nora. You’re leaving.
We’re millionaires. “
The letters came. regularly. I knew that tired as he was with the day’s work he always remembered how I would be waiting and watching for the posts.
There were letters from the ship posted at various ports of call. He described his fellow passengers amusingly for my benefit. I was terrified that his ship would ran into a storm which would be dangerous and I was very uneasy until he wrote telling me that he had arrived.
He wrote vividly and I had a clear picture of those early days, and although he wrote with the utmost optimism, I understood the hardships he had to endure. I pictured his setting out with the tools he would need: pickaxes; the cradle he used for puddling; his billy-can; his rations. I pictured the field on which he worked a desolate place it must have been with the trees chopped down and the tents pitched there I imagined their sitting round the fire at night exchanging stories of their finds and most of all their hopes. He would be in the centre; he would have more colourful tales than anyone; and of course there was his charm and his way with words. Somehow he made me see those unkempt men, their backs aching as they bent over their cradles watching the water run through the soil that could reveal the longed-for golden streaks. I could see their grim faces and on all was the lust for gold—the longing, the yearning-for they would all see in the yellow dust the gateway to fortune.
He loved the life, I sensed that. If I could have been with him he would have been perfectly happy. I believe now that had he made his fortune he could not have enjoyed life half as much as he did when he was endeavouring to find it. I should have been there with him. I could have cooked the food while they worked on the diggings; I saw myself as the little mother of the colony. Had I been there I was sure I should never have wanted them to find gold in any quantity. I should have wanted them to go on forever searching for it.
The months passed; he had moved to another field. He had found nothing but a little dust. Never mind. The new field was rich, he was sure; and one must have experience.
His optimism never flagged; he was always on the verge of great discovery. As to myself I must have seemed strange to my fellow pupils. I was aloof; I was not interested in school affairs but I managed to satisfy my teachers and I was left a good deal to myself. I was that ‘odd Nora Tamasin whose father was a gold miner in Australia’. They had wormed that much out of me.
Then the tone of the letters changed. He met the Lynx.
“The Lynx is the most unusual man I have ever met. We were drawn to each other from the first. I have decided to join him. He knows the country inside out. He’s been here for thirty-four years. If you could see him you’d know why they call him Lynx. He’s got a pair of eyes that see everything. They’re blue—not azure blue, not like the tropical seas, oh no! They’re like steel or ice. I never knew a man who could so quell with a look. He’s the big man round here. His name is Charles Herrick. He came out as a convict and now owns most of the place I’m in.
He’s a man in a million, it’s going to be different from now on. I’m going into business in a big way. No more working overworked plots.
It’s all different and all because of Lynx. “
I thought a great deal about the Lynx. I was a little jealous of him because my father’s letters were full of him. He admired him so much.
And now, through those letters, I understood what hardships he had suffered. The stories of campfire gaiety, the songs they sang by firelight, the comradeship of the diggings were only half the story. I now sensed the apprehension, the careful rationing of food, the preservation of the precious water, the terrible despair when day after day the cradles revealed nothing but the worthless dust.
“Lynx is going to strike gold in a big way, Nora, and when he does I’ll be with him. He’s a man of experience. Besides a sizeable property he owns the local store and a hotel in Melbourne. He has hundreds of men working for him and he knows all there is to know about gold. He can’t fail. I’ve told Lynx about you. He thinks that you should come out when you’re educated. But I’ll be home before then.”
I pictured Lynx—a pair of piercing eyes, a convict! Thirty-four years ago people had been sent out to Australia when they had been found guilty of some misdemeanour. Of what had Lynx been guilty? I wondered. Something political perhaps. I was sure he was not a thief or a murderer. I wanted to hear more of him.
“Lynx is a sort of king, magistrate, employer, dictator … the head of things. He is just, but he’ll have his own way. I’ve never felt such friendship as I do for him. It was a lucky day when I met him.
I’ve thrown in all I have with him. He’s certain that we’ll find a rich vein of gold. We’re going to work as secretly as possible. If we don’t keep h dark we’ll have diggers here from all over the place. The rumour only has to get round and they come in their thousands. Lynx is wily and we’re in this together. ” Letters had been coming more or less regularly. Sometimes I would get several together. My father would explain that there had been floods which had made it impossible to get letters down to Melbourne, or an expected ship had not arrived on time. There was always an explanation for delays and he never failed to give it. The message which came to me through all the letters was that however hard he was working, whatever was happening, he never forgot me and the ultimate goal, which was for us to be together.
And then no letters came. At first, though disappointed, I was not unduly alarmed. It was the floods or a delayed ship and there would be several when they did come. But they did not come and the weeks went on and there was still no news.