Beyond the Sunset Read online

  The elder daughter got up and from behind her chair produced a pile of about a dozen books fastened together by a leather strap that even had a carrying handle on the top.

  He stared at them in delight: A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, Westward Ho! by Kingsley, a book of poetry. He’d had little time for reading in his busy life, because the shop stayed open until late. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘We got you a diary too,’ the younger daughter said. ‘Mama thought you’d want to remember your big adventure. You can write down what happens every day. I wish I were going to Australia. It sounds so exciting.’

  Mr Featherworth said little, but let his womenfolk do most of the talking, sitting watching them with a fond smile.

  The older daughter carried a fancy wooden box across from a side table and set it on the sofa between Zachary and his hostess.

  ‘This is an old travelling writing desk, which used to belong to my uncle,’ Mrs Featherworth said. ‘It was lying around in the attic, not being used, so we thought you might like it. We’ve furnished it with letter paper and envelopes, plenty of nibs, and ink powder so that you can make up more ink as you need it.’

  He opened the lid and the box became a writing slope, the interior covered in dark red leather with a pattern embossed in gold round the edges. There were compartments at the front for pens, ink and sand bottles, though of course people used blotting paper these days not sand to dry the ink. ‘Thank you. I’ll take great care of it for you.’

  ‘Please keep it afterwards as a memento of your adventure.’

  He swallowed hard and tried not to betray that this extra unnecessary generosity had moved him almost to tears. From being a man struggling to dress decently as well as provide for his mother and sister, he was suddenly being loaded with possessions. He would, he vowed mentally, not let the lawyer down whatever happened.

  His hostess patted his hand in a motherly gesture. ‘If you have anything else to occupy yourself with, be sure to take it with you. The journey will go on for many weeks.’

  Drawing materials, he thought. I used to love drawing as a lad. I can afford some plain paper and pencils, surely? And a rubber, too. He smiled at the memory of an elderly uncle, also fond of drawing, who’d always called rubbers ‘lead eaters’.

  Zachary walked home carrying the books and the writing desk, his mind humming with all the information. He was amazed at how pleasantly the evening had passed, considering how nervous he’d been. But the lawyer’s daughters were nice lasses, for all their fine clothes, and you couldn’t find a kinder lady than Mrs Featherworth, so he’d soon lost his fear of upsetting them.

  It was cold and rainy and he couldn’t help shivering after being in such a well-heated house. It was hard to believe that he was going to a country where in summer the weather was hotter than it ever became in Lancashire, and where it never snowed in winter. It was hard even to imagine how that would feel.

  When he got back, he found his mother and sister waiting up for him, eager to hear how the evening had gone.

  Hallie pounced on the books while his mother marvelled at the travelling writing desk, running her fingers over the gleaming wood and examining each bottle and compartment.

  ‘Oh, you’re so lucky!’ Hallie sighed. ‘What wouldn’t I give to have all those books to read! I’ve read everything I want to from the public library.’

  ‘Choose one and read it while I’m away. It’ll remind you of me.’

  ‘Are you sure?

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He gave her a hug, surprised at how tall his little sister had grown lately.

  She picked out Mary Barton, her fingers caressing the tooled leather binding of the novel. ‘I’ll take this one, then. Thank you so much, Zachary.’

  He smiled indulgently. ‘I know how you love your stories of romance and adventure.’

  ‘It’s nice to dream sometimes.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll dream for you now. Perhaps you’ll fall in love while you’re away, meet a wonderful girl on the ship or . . . No, better still, fall in love with one of the Blake sisters and then the shop will be partly yours. That’ll solve all our problems.’

  He didn’t like this and drew back from her. ‘Don’t be silly! Mr Featherworth is trusting me to bring them back safely, not to prey on them.’

  ‘Falling in love isn’t preying, Zachary.’

  ‘It would be in this case.’

  She flounced one shoulder at him. ‘Oh, you! Sometimes you’re too noble for words! And once you get an idea fixed in your mind, there’s no changing it. Why can you not dream and let things happen as they will?’

  Because he’d never been free to dream, he thought bitterly, biting back an angry response. He’d had the responsibility for supporting them from a very early age. Not that he minded, of course he didn’t. And though they disagreed sometimes, as brothers and sisters always do, he loved Hallie dearly and didn’t want to quarrel with her just before he left.

  ‘Now, calm down, you two,’ his mother said, giving her daughter a quick kiss, then her son. She lingered next to Zachary to beg, ‘Don’t let all this go to your head, son. It’s a great adventure, to be sure, but you’ll still have to come back and work at Blake’s.’

  ‘If Harry Prebble stays in charge, I’ll be looking for work elsewhere.’ He wished he hadn’t told her that when he saw the anxiety in her face. ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t do anything rashly.’

  ‘No. You never do. I wish you did sometimes. We’ve stopped you being a young man, haven’t we?’ She began to light their candles ready to go up to bed, shaking her head sadly. ‘As for Harry, you two didn’t get on at school, were always fighting one another till you grew so much bigger than him, and it doesn’t seem to have got much better. It’s not good to make enemies, Zachary love.’

  ‘Sometimes enemies make themselves, Mum, whether we want it or not.’

  ‘Well, see that you don’t behave ungenerously, whatever he does. A man should do nothing he’s not proud of, whether he’s poor or rich. And the same when you’re out in the world. Always make me proud of you, son.’

  ‘I will.’ He went to check that the front and back doors were locked, extinguished the paraffin lamp in the kitchen and made his way up to bed by the wavering light of his candle.

  Zachary knew that whatever he said or did, Harry Prebble would always be suspicious of his motives and would continue to act in a mean-spirited way if left in charge. You had to stand up to a bully, or he’d get worse. Zachary had learned that lesson as a lad and it held true for grown men, too. But sometimes it was an unfair world and bullies had more power than you, so you couldn’t challenge them, could only walk away.

  No, he’d definitely look for other work. And surely, if he performed this task well, Mr Featherworth would give him a good reference?

  2

  Pandora woke to the screeching of parrots in the bush near the house and it took her a minute to remember that she was on the Southerhams’ farm, a place they’d called Westview, because it looked down a slope towards the west. The sky was filled with beautiful sunsets most evenings, which everyone enjoyed looking at. But Pandora’s main thought was always that England lay in that direction, far to the north-west, beyond the sunset.

  The farm was very isolated, a long day’s travel by cart to the south of Perth, in the foothills of the Darling Range. There were no other dwellings in sight and even her employers had only a tiny wooden hut to live in. The two maids slept in a corner of a big tent in which furniture was stored. Reece now slept at their neighbour’s house. Kevin lived just a few minutes’ walk away if you went through the bush.

  Cassandra was still sleeping, though how she could do that through the parrots’ din was a wonder to her sister.

  It was warm already and though they’d slept with only a sheet to cover them, Pandora had tossed even that off during the night. Christmas was only a few days past, and a strange, sunny celebration that had been. The heat had continued through early January, day aft
er day of it. Most people had sun-tanned faces, but her skin didn’t turn brown, only reddened in the heat, which continued to trouble her.

  She smiled at the best Christmas memory: her sister sitting holding Reece’s hand. She’d hoped that being near to one another would bring them together and it had.

  She’d played her part in this, helping him catch Cassandra on her own so that he could explain how he’d felt on hearing her news and exactly why he’d walked away. Then he’d proposed once again and whatever he’d said must have changed her sister’s mind, because this time Cassandra had accepted him. She said she was now convinced that he’d care for the baby she was carrying, even though it wasn’t his.

  Once they were married, however, Pandora would be on her own here, working for the Southerhams, and she didn’t know how she’d cope without her favourite sister’s companionship and support. Seeing Cassandra regularly just wouldn’t be the same. They’d lived closely and happily together all their lives until they left England. If Pandora’s fiancé hadn’t died of pneumonia, she and Bill would have rented a house close to her family. Now, who knew where they’d all end up?

  She slipped out of bed and went into the main part of the big storage tent where they had a bowl to wash in. Feeling fresher afterwards, she put on her clothes and went out to use the primitive latrine then refill the washing bucket with fresh water from the well for Cassandra.

  There was still some life in the embers inside the new iron stove they’d brought back from Perth. Reece had installed it a short distance away from the hut, under a wooden awning to protect it from the rain and the prevailing winds. They burned wood in it, not coal, gathering the wood from fallen branches and trees in the bush nearby.

  It seemed strange to do the cooking out of doors. Mr Southerham had wanted to build a kitchen on to one end of their shack, but Reece insisted people didn’t do that here, because it made the place too hot during the summer and because of the fire risk.

  Mr Southerham had given in, as he usually did. He took more care of his horses than he did of his wife’s comfort and wasn’t at all practical about everyday living. The two of them seemed to have no plans to provide proper accommodation for their maid. Did they expect Pandora to spend the winter sleeping in a tent? It might not snow or freeze here, but their neighbour said it rained heavily in the cooler months and was sometimes very windy. What if the tent leaked or blew away?

  Lost in her thoughts, she got the stove going again, feeding it dried gum leaves which burned well because the leaves contained eucalyptus oil, then twigs and solid pieces of wood. Putting on the big kettle of water she went to draw yet another bucket from the well. Not her favourite chore, this. Oh, for a tap out of which came clean water, as they’d had back home! You had to filter the drinking water through muslin here.

  Just before she got to the well she stopped to watch a kangaroo. It was sitting at the edge of the bush behind the house, scratching its chest with its short front legs while its baby hopped round it. It looked as if it was taking a well-earned rest. And that was the smallest joey Pandora had yet seen. She smiled as she watched it.

  Then something startled the little creature and it dived head first into its mother’s pouch, disappearing in a tangle of legs. Not until the big kangaroo had hopped away did Pandora start moving again. Such strange animals. She enjoyed watching them, and the other birds and animals that were new to her.

  If this was only a visit and she was going back to Lancashire afterwards, she’d be enjoying her stay. There was so little here. It was just a big, empty land. Perth, the capital city of the colony, had roughly the same population as Outham: about three thousand people.

  Sun beat down on her, hot already. She missed the softer, moister air of Lancashire, the vivid colours of autumn foliage, the neat little birds, the sound of Outham voices, everything. Dashing away a tear with the back of one hand, she told herself not to dwell on things that couldn’t be changed, to keep her feelings to herself and not upset her sisters.

  In Outham, Alice Blair finished packing her trunk and smiled at her cousin, who was helping her. ‘I can’t believe I’ll be able to continue taking it easy, Phoebe. I can’t thank you enough for arranging for me to look after the flat until the heirs return.’

  ‘Will you be all right on your own?’

  ‘I shan’t be on my own. The maid will be there too. Dot seems a nice lass.’

  ‘She is. And you and I will be able to see each other often.’

  ‘You’re not to disrupt your life because of me. You have your duties as a Minister’s wife to attend to.’ Alice clasped her cousin’s hand briefly. ‘I’m sure I shall soon make friends in Outham.’ They’d be spinsters like herself, but she was used to that. A governess who was nearly forty didn’t get much chance to make friends with married ladies, who had their own secrets to chat about.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘I mean it, Phoebe. I’m so much better now, you can stop worrying about me.’

  ‘I wish there was some way of you earning a living in Outham, or that you’d accept Gerald’s offer to come and live with us permanently.’

  ‘We’ve discussed that before. I won’t be a burden to you while I’m able to work.’

  ‘But you don’t even like being a governess.’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’

  Phoebe smiled. ‘Of course you didn’t. You’re not one to complain. But if you think I hadn’t guessed . . .’

  Alice sighed. ‘I never could fool you. I like the teaching side of things, but I don’t like the way my employers treat me. I don’t fit in with them and I don’t fit in with the servants. It’s a lonely life.’ She closed the lid and locked the trunk. ‘Well, bring up those lads who’re waiting so patiently and let’s get my things taken across to the shop. I shall come and help out with the soup kitchen and the reading classes once I’m settled in. It’s very sad how many people are out of work. Will the war in America never end?’

  ‘We’ll be glad of your help, but not until you’ve gone through everything in the flat and made the inventory for Mr Featherworth. That must come first.’

  ‘Of course.’

  When they got to the shop, Dot was waiting for them in the kitchen on the ground floor, hands clasped over a spotless apron. She took them up to the generous living quarters above the shop. The place looked clean and well cared for, which spoke well for her as a worker.

  At last Phoebe went away and Alice allowed herself a small sigh of relief. So ungrateful of her to feel like this, but her slightly older cousin did have a way of taking over every detail of your life, given half a chance. ‘Now, Dot, go and make a pot of tea and I’ll join you in the kitchen in a few minutes to drink it.’

  ‘You don’t want me to bring it up to you, miss?’

  ‘No. I’ll come down to the kitchen and you can have a cup with me. And is there some cake to go with it? Or biscuits perhaps?’

  ‘No, miss. Mr Prebble sends stuff in from the shop for me, but he doesn’t send any biscuits.’

  ‘Surely there was enough money provided for that?’

  Dot wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Mr Prebble looks after the money, miss. He says to tell you he’ll take care of the bills and accounts, like he’s been doing for me, and you’re to let him know what you want each week. He’s sent me in plenty of food. I’ve not gone hungry, not once.’

  Alice frowned. Mr Featherworth had told her how much housekeeping money she was to receive every week and it was a reasonable sum, but she had no intention of allowing the young man in the shop to take it over and dictate what she ate. ‘What a good thing I’ve not taken my hat off. I’ll nip across the street and buy a cake from the baker’s until we can start making our own. Afterwards we’ll go through what there is in the pantry and decide what else we need to buy.’

  Dot looked at her in alarm. ‘But Mr Prebble sells tins of—’

  ‘He isn’t in charge now, Dot. I am.’

  When the new occupant had gone out, Harry popped
into the kitchen. ‘Where’s she off to?’

  ‘The baker’s.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell her I’d see to the food?’

  ‘Yes, but she said she’d rather do that herself.’

  ‘Oh, did she?’

  He looked so angry Dot was relieved when the shop doorbell sounded and he hurried back to check on the customers. He didn’t like to miss a thing, that one, and always had to be telling people what to do. She hoped her new mistress would be able to deal with him, but she didn’t have much hope of that, because he was a cunning devil. Dot saw a lot, working so close to him, but wouldn’t dare say anything about it.

  Miss Blair returned in a few minutes, just as Dot was worrying that the tea she’d brewed might get cold and too strong.

  ‘Here we are. I do love a good fruitcake. Put the teapot on the table and sit down.’

  ‘It’s not right, miss, me sitting down with you.’

  ‘It is if I tell you to. I want to talk to you and I’m sure you’re ready for a rest.’

  ‘I don’t usually sit down till I have my dinner at one o’clock, miss. Mr Prebble says there’s no need for it.’ He’d had her packing stuff for the shop a couple of times when she’d finished her work early. She didn’t mind, really, because she liked to keep busy, but she didn’t like the way he stood so close to her while she worked.

  ‘Well, today you’re sitting with me because we need to work out how we shall go on together. And from today, it’s me you answer to, not Prebble. Please remember that.’

  Dot looked at her companion’s plain face, warm smile and thin body, and suddenly felt at ease. ‘Thank you, miss. A cup of tea will be very welcome, I must admit, and a short sit-down too.’

  She just hoped Harry didn’t see them. There wasn’t any door in the passage that connected the shop and the living quarters.

  As the week leading up to his departure flew past, Zachary’s mother tried not to show how upset she was at him going so far away. He knew she wept in private and was worried about the dangers of a long sea voyage, but this was such a big chance for him she tried to hide that from him.