She swung one of the two large black kettles away from the fire and poured hot water into the tin bucket on the hearth. The smell of bread baking filled the kitchen.

  Emma located the teapot and made up a brew, setting out the cups on the scrubbed pine table. When Deelie returned, she pulled three loaves of bread from the oven fitted into one half of the fireplace. She set two in the open window and cut off the heel of the other, spreading it thickly with yellow butter and cutting it in two, putting one half on a plate for Emma. They devoured the hot bread in silence and washed it down with their first cup of tea.

  “So, did you find Mrs. Anderson down at that Bendigo, then?” Deelie asked.

  “I did. She sends her regards. Mary is courting, he’s a clerk at the courthouse called Jimmy, and the boys are working at the powder factory.”

  “Ah, and Danny and young Katy, they are all right then?”

  “They seem so.”

  “Fine, fine. I do miss them.”

  “Top of the morning to ye, sweetheart,” said a male voice. Brendan O’Neill’s face was at the window, smiling at Deelie as he reached for the loaves. He started at the sight of Emma and coloured. “Ah, and good morning to you. I’ll just be taking these for the boys.” He was gone before either woman could do more than smile in response.

  Emma looked at Deelie with eyebrows raised in question. Deelie blushed. She got up from the table and busied herself putting thick rashers of bacon in a pan on the grating.

  “He seems a nice fellow,” Emma said.

  “Aye, he is that.”

  Emma had the feeling matters weren’t all rosy from Deelie’s tone of voice.

  “Is there a problem?” Emma said

  Deelie banged the fork against the pan. “Bren’s afraid he’s going to be let go any day. Himself says Bren can’t do his proper work if he’s looking after Liam as well, and he isn’t paying him to be a nursemaid.”

  “And you don’t want to look after him? I can understand that. A child is a big responsibility. Or isn’t that an option?”

  “Himself doesn’t want me doing it either, though I do whenever I can,” Deelie assured her. “But I don’t like it here anymore, not since the Andersons left. I’ve no one to talk with all day, except for Bren. I wouldn’t have come here if it had only been men. And I don’t want to stay now.”

  Emma had to admit it wasn’t an ideal situation for a young woman. She had been the only woman on the Mary B, but her position there had been quite different to Deelie’s and she got to talk to any number of women on her travels.

  “You must find it lonely. Is there a reason you can’t look for another place?” Emma asked.

  She remembered Mrs. Lockwood’s offer to Brendan when she was at Merrim previously. Had Brendan followed up on it? She didn’t like to ask in case he hadn’t told Deelie. Perhaps he had his own reasons for not wanting to move, reasons that didn’t include her. From the little Emma had seen he was still attached to the memory of his dead wife.

  Deelie looked at her despairingly. “We can neither of us read or write,” she blurted out and got up again to tend the bacon and add some eggs to the pan.

  That did present a problem. No matter the advances in communication, it still required people to be literate.

  “Isn’t there anyone here who could help?”

  “Bren asked Mr. Fraser but he wouldn’t do it. He says it isn’t his problem to find new places for people who want to leave. And Mort just laughed at Bren when he asked him.”

  “Who is Mort?”

  “A miserable old lump who likes to see others just as miserable,” Deelie said savagely. “Always pouring poison in Mr. Fraser’s ear, he is. He looks after the veggie garden and the orchard.” She put bacon, eggs, and bread onto a plate, and set up a tray, adding a teapot, mug, and milk. “Bren might go and find us something and then send for me, but it's hard to manage with Liam.” She left to serve Mr. Fraser his breakfast.

  Emma poured herself another cup of tea. If ever she complained about her lot again, she would remind herself of Deelie and be thankful. She still thought the pair of them could take themselves and young Liam off on a boat and find a better place to work, but she had no idea of their resources, how long they could survive between jobs or their commitment to one another for all that. The world could look big and frightening sometimes, especially if you didn’t feel confidant of negotiating it because of your lack of education. Not being able to read or write must be a little like being blind and where you were the safer option.

  This Mort person Deelie had mentioned didn’t sound very pleasant. Was he the type who would chance his hand and pick up an item left out in full view? She had a vague memory of seeing someone tending the vegetable garden down by the river when she was here those few months back, but she hadn’t met the man.

  When Deelie returned with the empty tray, Emma had come to a decision.

  “How would it be if I write and make enquiries about positions for you and Mr. O’Neil?” she offered. “Would that work for you?”

  “Would you?” Deelie’s face brightened, then clouded again. “You’d have to read the answers for us as well. How would you do that when you’re not here?”

  “I’m sure we could find a way.” She hadn’t yet explained her reason for returning to Merrim, but the opportunity of helping Deelie and Brendan could ensure their help in her own search. If Brendan considered it help. She wasn’t so sure of that yet.

  “We’ll do anything we can if you help us get out of here, Mrs. Berry.”

  “I’ll do my best. We’ll go over to the stable and speak to Mr. O’Neill once I’ve spoken with Mr. Fraser, and I’ll explain what I’m doing here. I think we can help each other, Deelie, which is even better. And please, call me Emma.”

  “I will, thank ye.”

  Emma knew there were always positions advertised in the newspapers and she still had Mrs. Lockwood’s offer in mind. And then there was Nettifield. A housekeeper like Deelie was just what they needed to free Bea to marry her Thomas. Unless Matty had made up with Dotty. She wondered how the girl had felt about Matty not seeing her for several months. She doubted George Macdonald would agree to hiring a housekeeper, and Liam was a handicap no matter how you looked at it. Best not complicate matters there more than necessary.

  Emma waited until Mr. Fraser had breakfasted before presenting herself to him. She caught him on his way to the stables. He remembered her from her visit ten days before. She remembered his dour, grumbling manner. Nothing had changed in that regard.

  “Sounds like a will-o’-the-wisp,” he said, his Scots brogue thick with ill humour after she’d given him an explanation of sorts as to her mission. “It’s your time to waste.”

  “I would be most willing to pay for my board, Mr. Fraser. I may need to stay for several days. And I hope you won’t mind my talking to your men. I believe most of them were here under the Andersons?”

  “Aye. Not much has changed. Sassenachs the lot, more’s the pity,” he grumbled. “I’d like to turn the whole lot over. Bed and meals’ll cost ye three shilling a day,” he added, as he walked away.

  Emma stared after him. Miserable old goat. He’d be lucky if he kept the men he had with that attitude. Sassenachs indeed. She would keep out of Mr. Fraser’s way and he could keep his grumbles and lack of manners to himself. Her shillings were all he would get.

  Deelie was peeling potatoes with a cup of tea at her elbow when Emma returned to the kitchen. A cabbage and several turnips waited attention.

  “Irish stew?” Emma asked.

  “Ah, no, taties and mutton with the others on the side with butter and pepper. That’s the Irish way, for sure.”

  “I look forward to it. I’ll eat in here when you do Deelie if you don’t mind my company.”

  “I would hope to be more pleasant company than himself, anyways,” Deelie said, with a knowing look.

  “Much more pleasant.”

  To speed up their visit to the stable to talk with Brendan O’Neill, Emma helped Deelie with her chores, cleaning out the fireplaces and resetting the fires in Mr. Fraser’s bedroom and dining room, which also served as the parlour. Then they dusted the rooms, swept the floors, and restocked the kitchen wood bin.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Deelie protested.

  “Nonsense. I had to do my share of work when I was growing up.” Not to mention what she did on the Mary B. The thought brought a sudden wave of regret for lost dreams. Deelie herself was a reminder of the time at Merrim after Sam died.

  Back in the kitchen, Deelie made up tea in a billy. “I take morning tea to Bren and Liam when I can,” she said by way of explanation, “when himself is away from the house.”

  Emma suspected they probably got a lot more than morning tea. Deelie wrapped some biscuits in a cloth and put them in a basket with a jug of milk and an extra mug.

  “Right then,” she said handing the basket to Emma, “don’t spill the milk.”

  Brendan was forking hay into the feed bins when they arrived at the stable. Liam was playing in a pile of straw, wearing a little harness fastened with rope to the corner post of an empty stall. Both father and son brightened as Deelie and Emma came in, though Emma had no doubt their pleasure had nothing to do with her. Liam cried out to Deelie, holding up his arms. She handed the tea-billy to Brendan and unhitched the boy.

  “You’re gettin’ almost too big for me to carry, m’lad,” she said, giving him a big hug. She led the way into a room at the end of the stable, Liam on her hip. The dirt-floored room held a small deal table and two wooden chairs. A curtain partly hid a bed against the opposite wall. Deelie put Liam down on a multi-coloured plaited rug that filled the small space between the furniture, where he promptly set up a wail.

  “Wheest, now. You’ll not get a biscuit if you keep up that fearsome noise, m’lad,” she told him, but he continued to whimper until the biscuit was provided. Brendan produced a tub for himself to sit on as Deelie set out the mugs.

  “Emma has kindly offered to help us with letters to get a place together,” she said as she carefully poured tea from the billy into three of the mugs.

  “That’s mighty good of you,” Brendan said, not looking at Emma.

  Deelie poured milk into a fourth mug and Brendan took it, kneeling and holding it for Liam to drink.

  “Do you remember the lady I was with when I called in before?” Emma asked of neither one in particular, hoping she wasn’t about to create dissension if Brendan hadn’t mentioned Mrs. Lockwood’s offer. “She was concerned about Liam being in the stables here. She thought she might have a place for Mr. O’Neill.”

  “What’s this?” Deelie asked.

  “She just said Liam would fit in with her grandchildren, is all. She was just being polite,” Brendan replied, his attention still on his son.

  “True,” Emma agreed, “but she might know if anything was available around Wentworth. I could write and ask her, just in a general way, if you would like me to do that for a start. You would be closer to a town there too.”

  “Bren?”

  He sat back down at the table and picked up his mug of tea. “Sure. That’ll be fine.” He didn’t sound particularly enthused at the idea.

  “Thank you,” Deelie said to Emma, with a small frown in Brendan’s direction.

  Was he embarrassed at not being able to read or write? Or did he simply not want to take Deelie with him? She didn’t want to arrange for a new position for them and then have them not take it, but in the end, it would be up to them. Right now, she had more urgent business.

  “There is something I need your help with, both of you,” Emma said. “The reason I’ve come back.”

  Chapter 19

  Stepping Lightly

  “Do you remember, Mr. O’Neill,” Emma said, “that little oilskin packet you mentioned to me as being among the possessions my husband was carrying? The items Captain Hargreaves left with the Andersons?”

  “I recall it, all right.”

  “He told me all about that,” agreed Deelie. “That’s why you went to find Mrs. Anderson, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Well, that little packet did contain jewellery, as you supposed, but it wasn’t meant for me.”

  Emma told them about the Montague emeralds. There were some people she had to trust with the true story, or at least as much as they needed to know if she was to have their help. Calling it a sentimental trinket didn’t support the urgency she felt now. As with Mrs. Anderson, she didn’t mention names and this time she didn’t mention any threats either. It was simply a lost piece of expensive jewellery her husband was asked to deliver. Deelie’s eyes grew wide as she listened.

  “He did do that, young Danny,” she said, as Emma related what the Andersons had told her about the little boy’s habit of picking up brightly coloured objects.

  “Do you think that’s what happened to it?” Brendan asked.

  Emma shrugged. “I really don’t know. I’m trying to check other possibilities as well, like who might have come to the house in those few days and perhaps seen the packet on the hall table. Could one of the men working here have seen it?”

  “No,” Deelie said. “They never come to the house unless for something urgent and then they come to the kitchen or the back door. Mr. Anderson, he always went over to give their orders.”

  “That’s true for sure,” Brendan agreed. “Always I would bring Liam to the kitchen and Deelie would take him in.”

  “Do you remember any strangers calling in during those days I was here?”

  Deelie and Brendan looked at one another and both shook their heads. “Men often pass through here,” Brendan said. “There may have been someone, there may not. It’s a long time ago now, like.”

  “Mr. Fraser said none of the men have left since the Andersons were here.”

  “Nothing’s changed except the manager,” Brendan assured her.

  “How many are employed here, now?”

  “There’s six living in the quarters, and three shepherds who stay out with the flocks,” Brendan said. “They haven't put in much fencing yet. And Mort in the shack. You’ll see him around.”

  “I’ll speak to him. Is it Mr. Mort?”

  “Mortimer is his name, but everyone calls him Mort,” Brendan said.

  “It’ll be most likely Danny took it, I’m thinking,” Deelie said. “That red wax seal you said? He was right taken with red, wasn’t he, Bren.”

  “He was.”

  “You’ll be wanting our help to search the place, then?” Deelie went on.

  “Would it be possible to search without anyone else noticing what we were doing?” Emma asked. “Or at least, not letting them know it was something valuable.”

  “Why? Oh, they might go searching for it and not tell if they found it?” said Deelie. “We wouldn’t do that, Emma. Not me and Bren. We wouldn’t know what to do with a valuable piece of jewellery, anyway, and that’s the right of it.”

  “I wouldn’t have taken you into my confidence if I’d thought you would,” Emma assured them, but there was a risk, though small enough, she hoped.

  “Mr. Fraser wouldn’t be too pleased if everyone went off on a treasure hunt, anyway. He’d be right annoyed,” said Deelie, picking Liam up onto her lap as he began to fret.

  Emma hoped it might keep Mr. Fraser from mentioning her quest to the men himself.

  “We could spin a tale or two if asked,” Brendan said, with a grin. “Liam could have lost a ball under the woolshed, such like, if anyone sees me searching about.”

  “And I could be looking for wild herbs, or some eggs from the hens that got out of their yard,” Deelie added.

  Emma laughed. “All right. I see I can leave that to your fertile imaginations. Its best few people know something valuable has been lost. And thank you both so much for offering to help.”

  “Where else do we search?” Brendan asked.

  “Everywhere, I would say,” Deelie said, her enthusiasm for the task obvious. “Under every bush and tree and rock and log and building. Wherever Danny went. At least he didn’t wander far, ‘cept that once.” She frowned. “Ooh, you don’t think he would have taken it with him when he went off with the blacks?”

  “Heavens, I hope not,” Emma said, wishing Deelie’s imagination was a little less active. She didn’t want to think about other possibilities, or she would be beaten before she started.

  “It will take several days to search the place, given you both have your work to do, and we need to make sure we don’t cover places we’ve already done, or miss any,” she said. “What we need is a map.”

  “A treasure map.” Deelie clapped her hands.

  “I could draw that,” Brendan offered.

  “Could you? That would be most helpful. Do either of you have paper? It will need to be larger than my notebook page.”

  “I don’t think... Oh, I’ve got some brown paper put away that came around a parcel,” Deelie said.

  “That would do.”

  They collected up the tea things and the three of them, with Liam, returned to the kitchen where Deelie produced the brown wrapping paper from the back of a cupboard. It was too creased for drawing on, so she put a flat iron on the fire to heat and soon had it smoothed out.

  Brendan set to work at the kitchen table with a pencil supplied by Emma, Deelie hanging over his shoulder adding her penneth worth. Emma made sure the hiding places Katy had told her of were included while she kept Liam occupied with a supply of Deelie’s oat biscuits.

  The homestead, gardens, farm buildings, water tanks, stockyard, trees, river, creek, sheep wash, and graveyard appeared under Brendan’s skilful fingers. Pictures of woolly sheep identified the woolshed, horses marked the stable, and human figures denoted the domestic buildings. Emma was impressed with the finished result and said so. His pale face took on a pink tinge at her praise.

  “We need to divide the place between us,” Emma said, looking over the map. “There will be some places you can search more easily than Deelie or I, Mr. O’Neill. Put a circle around the places you think you could do.”

 

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