The Castlemaine Murders (14 page)

‘Probably not,’ sighed Lin. ‘But I must try, Venerable Lady.’

‘Hmm. What do you wish to know?’

‘Do you know anything about the fate of the couriers, Lady Hu?’

The title pleased the old woman. She had less beard and more hair than Great Great Uncle Lin Gan, but not a lot more of anything else. Her tiny bound feet in minute red slippers were resting on a footstool. Lily feet. How did it feel, Lin wondered, to have your insteps broken in order to please some man? A childhood of torture did not seem to have broken her spirit, however. Her eyes were as bright as new pins and she had clearly not overlooked anything in her whole life. She decided to talk to him.

‘You have to understand about those goldfields. They were like—like a vision of eternal damnation. There were few women on the fields. I and my sister—she is dead now, poor thing—were born there. My father, Ah Sen, did not expose us or punish our mother for our birth, because with so few Chinese girls in Australia he had hopes of a great marriage for us. There were four of us. I am the only one with the lotus feet. Two were married to Australian Chinese and they did not need us to decorate a boudoir. They needed us to work and walk and bear sons. One of us, my sister Ky, married an Irish ghost, Liely. But he was a good ghost. He had a farm where he bred horses and his household was all Chinese—the cook, the gardeners. When he asked my father for my sister when she grew up, Father was pleased. Provided she was to be lady of the house, not a concubine. They do not understand concubinage here and treat the women badly, as though they were whores. Hu women have never been whores. Except for Hu Lah, and that was different,’ she said defiantly.

Lin sat in a trance of heat, feeling his life force drain away. He was not going to be able to ask questions. It was unthinkable to interrupt an elder and she would dismiss him instantly from her presence if he did. He just had to try not to melt and wait to see if she directed her discourse towards something he needed to know. He felt convinced that she knew this and was playing with him as a cat plays with something inoffensive and squeaky before it eats it.

‘My other two sisters went to ordinary Chinese but I was destined for Mr Hu, a rich man, so they prepared my feet and me to be a rich man’s wife. I left my sisters behind and went into the Hu household, a very well run household. I had no mother-in-law to torment me! My husband came out here alone and it was only later that he sent for his old mother, and she was very old by then.’ A malicious gleam in the old eyes told Lin that the old mother hadn’t been given any scope to torment young, confident Hu Ta. It had probably, he thought, been the other way round. And what she had done to her daughters-in-law didn’t bear thinking about. ‘We left the goldfields with an adequate fortune and my husband built a house in Caulfield, a western house, unlike some who cling to Chinese ways,’ she said, a stab at the Lin family’s very Chinese architecture. ‘Unlike, as it might be, the Lin family, who stayed on and became peasant farmers, which was, of course, their heritage,’ she added, making her opinion patent.

‘I was very busy, ordering my household. I have five sons,’ she said proudly, ‘eleven grandsons, fifteen great grandsons.’

‘You are to be congratulated,’ said Lin conventionally. Insults to his family passed him by. She was trying to bait him, but instead he was feeling sorry for her, a fact which he knew would colour his dialogue and annoy Old Lady Hu Ta very much. Such a small thin woman, to bear so many children! And she hadn’t even mentioned daughters, which was to be expected. There must have been daughters. But she had paused to be praised and he inserted a thin conversational wedge.

‘Your honoured father, Lady Hu, what was his honourable profession?’

‘He was a miner,’ she said. ‘They all were.’

‘A Gold Mountain uncle,’ said Lin, and sang a particle of Great Great Uncle Lin Gan’s song. ‘Don’t marry your daughter to a scholar, she’ll sleep all night alone . . .’

The old lady chuckled and chanted the rest of the couplet.

‘ “Marry her to a Gold Mountain uncle, with sleeves of golden shine, don’t marry him to your daughter, marry him to mine!” I remember them singing that. The songs used to change every week but that one stuck. Who sang you that song, young man?’

‘My Great Great Uncle Lin Gan,’ said Lin Chung, expecting scorn.

‘Is he still living?’ asked Lady Hu. ‘He was a handsome man! My sister was in love with him. It was not possible to keep us in proper seclusion on the goldfields. We were supposed to stay in the house but we had to do all the work—to fetch water, to tend animals—so sometimes we had to go outside and there we would see young men because the goldfields were full of young men. Then we would run inside, of course, a modest woman should not be seen. My sister saw Lin Gan and cried over him, because she could not have him even if he asked for her, because we were at feud with the Lins. Such a pity. Still, probably for the best. She would not have been happy in a family that could believe that we would steal from them,’ concluded Old Lady Hu Ta.

Lin said nothing in reply. There was a pause.

‘But I am pleased that this misunderstanding has been cleared up,’ said Old Lady Hu, softening her manner a little, in the same way a cat sedulously avoids alarming its mouse too much until its tail is clear of the hole. ‘I am glad that Hu Wan could go back and see her aged mother. Age is to be served, young Mr Lin.’

‘Indeed,’ murmured Lin, almost slain by heat.

There was no fun left in him any more. Old Lady Hu allowed the reappearing maid to serve him tea then let him take the requisite three sips dictated by courtesy before she said abruptly, ‘I am tired. Go away. Look for the couriers somewhere near the third blazed tree on the Moonlight road. That is where we saw them last,’ and she waved a hand and Lin Chung escaped.

He leaned for a moment on the wall outside the oven-hot room. Mr Hu joined him.

‘I did warn you,’ said Mr Hu sympathetically. ‘I hope your information was worth an hour in one of the hotter hells. If you will come this way, honoured and exhausted guest, I will provide you with some cold if inferior beer. You did well,’ said Mr Hu suavely as he led the way into a small garden. The air blew coolly over Lin’s hot face. He mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief.

The gravel was raked into patterns. An interesting boulder allowed water to trickle over its face down into a pond containing goldfish. So much for not clinging to Chinese ways. If there was a garden more Chinese than this, Lin had never seen it. He sagged down onto a rustic seat.

A maid brought a large jug of beer and two glasses and stood by, hands folded over her tray. Lin drained the glass, refilled it, drained it again and the maid went back to the kitchen for another jug. This was obviously a ritual with persons who had been interviewed by Great Great Grandmother Hu Ta.

‘I only just survived, Mr Hu,’ he answered.

‘With that old dragon lady, surviving is as much as any man can boast,’ said Mr Hu, taking a sip of his beer. ‘She has, all by herself, terrified three generations of the Hu family. We used to have to dose my mother with laudanum as soon as she was sent for, and all by herself and without a weapon Hu Ta is definitely responsible for three heart attacks, a sudden fit of insanity and a miscarriage. She was sorry about the miscarriage, I admit. But she excused it by saying that so weak a pregnancy must have been a girl. No one has ever made her change her mind and in accepting your offer to settle the feud I acted without her instructions.’

‘You’re a brave man, Mr Hu.’

‘You too, Mr Lin.’

They toasted each other in beer. Lin was beginning to feel that he might not burst into spontaneous flame after all.

‘She said she was pleased that the feud was settled,’ he said. Mr Hu gave a deep sigh of relief.

‘She really said that?’

‘Yes,’ said Lin. ‘Before telling me that my family were peasant farmers.’

‘So was her father,’ said Mr Hu, mopping his brow in turn. ‘Her father worked at a farm as a gardener. He never was anything else but a gardener. You have done me a great service, Mr Lin! I would never have dared to ask her what she thought of the settlement. Tell me, is that one of your trade silk handkerchiefs?’

Lin handed it over.

‘We can’t get silk like this,’ said Mr Hu regretfully. ‘So fine, such a good colour.’

‘You can if you buy it from me,’ replied Lin. ‘But going to get it nearly cost me my life. I won’t be sending anyone to replenish our stock, so now is the time to buy. Not a lot of silk is going to come out of China for the next few years. All the news we have heard is bad.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Hu. He seemed to have gained weight. His smooth face was smoother and lines had ironed out around his eyes. Great Great Grandmother must be a severe responsibility, Lin thought. ‘Hu lands have been stolen by warlords, Hu women ravished, Hu houses burned by bandits. Better to be here. They may not like us,’ said Mr Hu, ‘but they aren’t actively trying to kill us.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lin, and drank more beer. ‘I have an idea,’ he said, after another chill mouthful.

‘What is the honourable idea of my honourable guest?’ asked Mr Hu, deliberately overstressing the courtesy. It was his third glass of beer.

‘Let’s bring Great Great Uncle Lin Gan to visit Great Great Grandmother Hu Ta,’ said Lin. ‘Her sister fancied him in the past. She might marry again and you can get her off your hands.’

Mr Hu stared at him and burst out laughing.

‘You are a very, very bold man,’ he chuckled, ‘for wanting to bring Old Lady Hu into the same house as Old Lady Lin.’

Both men looked solemnly into their beer glasses. That was, indeed, a sobering thought.

In the thirteenth year of the reign of the glorious Emperor Lord of
the Dragon Throne Kwong Sui of the Ching Dynasty, the elder
brother Sung Ma greets his younger sister Sung Mai. 21st March
1855 in the solar calendar, probably the season of Grain in Ear.

Today we started walking. Although I have stout sandals and
nothing to carry I am finding this difficult. The others trot along,
ta’am over shoulder or across the neck, carrying 100 catties—
almost one hundred and thirty pounds in western measures—and
only stop for tea and even then they do not seem tired. After a
morning’s walking I am exhausted. Mr Lin sent me to ride in the
cart. He said it was because he wants me to learn English so as to
interpret for him, but really he is being kind to my blisters. I am
studying my text and writing this as we bounce along and behind
I can see a long tail of blue coats, black trousers and straw hats.
Three hundred Chinese going to the goldfields. May the gods be
kind to us!

CHAPTER EIGHT

I see the traveller’s unwaking sorrow
The vagabond spring’s come in a clatter.
Too profusely rich are the flowers,
Too garrulous the parrot’s chatter.

Tu Fu, translated by Lin Yutang

‘Of poor but honest parents he was born in Castlemaine . . .’ sang Phryne on her way home. All places were tending to Castlemaine—what did she know about Castlemaine? Until recently, home of the Castlemaine XXXX beer, which both Bert and Cec, her wharfie friends, liked. Home of the toothsome Castlemaine rock, a carefully made sweet of which Ruth was very fond. Somehow connected with a big wheel, which was probably not the one engineers sang of, and a woollen mill, something to do with ham and bacon; all this and only some seventy-five miles by road and seventy-eight by rail from Melbourne. The guidebooks said that there were several excellent hotels. Phryne was looking for one in which she could entertain a Chinese lover without comment, which ruled out the Midland (a coffee palace, anyway—Phryne did not approve of the temperance movement) and the Cumberland (arguably too big and too public). That seemed to leave a Railway, a Commercial, and the Imperial Hotel, opposite the Town Hall— not too many rooms and probably, if Phryne knew hotels, a reasonable scatter of backstairs. It lodged visiting politicians, she was told, and that argued that the management had a relaxed view of what Dot would call ‘goings-on’. Otherwise it would not lodge politicians. More than once, anyway.

The Imperial might, she thought, be just the ticket. She had a feeling that openly accommodating a Chinese would cause the sort of scandal that even wealth and connections and rank might not be able to ride out . . . And Phryne was determined to get Lin Chung to herself for a while. Her intentions were purely carnal, and it had been far too long since they had been properly indulged.

Now to see what had happened at her own house while she had been away interviewing nuns and making rash promises.

The house was blessedly tranquil. Mr Butler met Phryne at the door with an ‘all quiet’ report.

‘Miss Dot is lying down, the young ladies are at school, Miss Eliza is still in her room and perhaps, Miss Fisher, you might care to enquire as to her health? Mrs Butler felt sure that she heard her crying.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Phryne. ‘Can you obtain the number of the Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine? I want a private room, with bath if possible, and as far away from the street as they can manage. If they’re full, get me a room at the Cumberland. For tomorrow night and possibly longer. The game, Mr Butler, is afoot.’