She trembled on the brink of new knowledge about herself, but she could not push past the cowardice and dissembling of her own conscience. If she forgot herself, she was lost. There was no magic. Oh, but if there were…
He broke the spell. “Aisleen, lass, we’ve a way to go. We’ll talk again tonight.”
She nodded once, afraid to ask him what the subject was to be. She was all too certain that she knew.
She hung on as tightly as before; but as they rode she kept her eyes open, and the enchantment of the day won her over. The road dropped steeply a mile farther on, and in the valley into which they rode she saw a telltale sign of humanity rising from the densely wooded gorge—a thin column of smoke that could only be a campfire.
As they neared, the track they rode merged with another, wider road and she was surprised by the traffic on the broader lane. Several bullock-drawn drays formed a column stretching back down the road. Ahead of them an elegant town carriage, complete with red-enameled rims and spokes, bounced lightly over the wicked ruts. As the carriage sped past she thought she heard the distinctive notes of feminine laughter.
“There’ll be fancy doings in the town tonight,” Thomas remarked casually. “A good thing I rode in ahead to claim a room.”
Aisleen brightened. “Did you say a room?”
“Aye, at the hotel. I do nae want me wife sleeping in a miner’s tent.”
A hotel in the midst of the wilderness? Aisleen smiled. Tonight she would have her very own bed and a roof over her head. There would be good hot food and water for washing and bathing. Just the thought of soap and water made her skin itch.
To her disappointment, Thomas did not whip up his horse. He slowed it to fall in beside the first of the bullock drays they met at the merge and then struck up a conversation with the driver.
The huge-shouldered beasts were harnessed with wooden collars behind their wide, flat brace of horns. They plodded along in seeming disregard of their master, neither quickening
nor slowing their pace though the driver roared invectives at them with regularity.
Aisleen gave the wild-bearded bullocker in the distinctive wide-brimmed hat of the colony a quick look and decided that the animals he drove with the crack of whips and vitriolic shouts and curses were probably more reliable company.
When Thomas finally tossed his hand in farewell and kicked his horse into a canter, she was grateful, for she had learned several things: the pace of bullock drays was tediously slow, the driver’s speech was even more alarming than the cook’s, and bullocks attracted more flies with their foul smell than horses.
A few minutes later, they entered a denser part of the forest, where the sheer number of trees formed a partial shade that was lacking in the less-populated areas of the bush. Suddenly the forest cleared and the road widened into the main street of a small community that teemed with bullock drays, wagons, horsemen, and pedestrians.
Ringing the cleared square was a row of wooden buildings interspersed with daub-and-wattle huts with string-bark roofs. Above each building hung a sign, and she read with amazement “Tobacconist,” “Hair Dresser,” “Barber/Surgeon,” and several marked “Hotel.”
Thomas halted before the two-story building whose sign read “Bullock Hotel.” Reaching back, he caught Aisleen by the waist and said, “Slide ye down, lass.”
Aisleen dismounted with surprising ease, and then he dismounted after her.
“So, we’ll be making a horsewoman of ye yet,” he said in approval of her flushed cheeks. “Come in, lass. I’ve a fine thirst, and ye look like a meal would nae come amiss.”
As they entered two gentlemen in frock coats and top hats were deep in argument with the large, aproned man who stood behind the registry desk. Beside the gentlemen two
women in enormous crinolines stood fanning themselves against the heat.
“I demand that you make arrangements!” the younger of the two gentlemen said, pounding his fist on the desktop “We’ve come forty miles in a single day. The ladies are exhausted from the heat. We’ll pay you double what the damned rooms are worth!”
The beefy-faced publican shook his head. “As I’ve said, gov’ner, there’s no rooms to let. Give the last one to a man this morning. Ah, there’s the very one.”
“G’day, Jeb.” Thomas walked up to the desk with a small nod for the two men already standing there and picked up the quill.
“A moment, sir,” the young man said as Thomas began to make a mark, and Aisleen saw as he turned that he was quite attractive with his blond mustache and seemingly wealthy, for he wore a pearl stickpin in his cravat.
Thomas turned a pleasant expression to the man, who was taller but slimmer than he. “G’day to ye.”
“Is it true that you have a room?” the young man demanded.
Thomas’s eyes narrowed at the absence of friendliness in his voice. “Aye, I’ve a room.”
The man smiled, but the expression was too stiff to be pleasant. “I have with me my wife and my in-laws. I’m in need of a room. You do understand, do you not?”
Thomas lifted his hat from his head as he turned to the ladies and nodded smilingly to each. “I can see ye’ve a fine wife there. So have I. Give yer g’days to the gentleman and his lady wife, Aisleen.”
Aisleen caught back her wind-ruffled hair and smiled shyly, acutely embarrassed to have been singled out by her husband’s ringing voice. “How do you do?” she said softly
“A lady!” the older of the two well-dressed women voiced in amazement.
Aisleen did not need their shocked glances to tell her that she was filthy and disheveled, but they added to her discomfort.
“She’s a bit road weary but, for all that, she’s as pretty a sight as ever I hope to see,” Thomas said proudly. “Now I’ll be seeing to her proper care.”
The younger man took out his wallet, extracted several bills, and waved them under Thomas’s nose. “Very well. I’ve been in the damned colony long enough to understand what is required. Here’s five pounds for your trouble. With it I’m certain you will be able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere.”
Thomas stared at him without a single glance at the bribe.
The blond man looked disconcerted. “We were told that this is the best hotel for miles about.”
“I would nae be at all surprised that ye’ll learn that they did nae lie to
ye about that fact,” Thomas returned smoothly.
The convoluted sentence took the man a moment to untangle and when he had, Thomas had already gained possession of the room key.
“Now wait a moment!” he cried, anger crimsoning his fair skin. “What will it cost me to buy you out? Whatever it is, I’ll pay it! And the devil take you damned Irish!”
Aisleen saw Thomas’s hand move toward his waistband, and even though she could not quite believe that he intended to pull his pistol, she rushed over and grabbed his wrist in both hands. “Tom, I’m very tired. Can’t we go now?”
He angled his head toward her, his eyes strangely dark. “Tom? Please,” she begged softly but squeezed his wrist as tightly as she could.
“Aye, aye,” Thomas repeated slowly. “We’ll be going up now.” His arm relaxed back to his side, but Aisleen did not loosen her grip. She tugged on his arm to pull him toward the stairs, giving the two women a brief smile.
Thomas followed her without resistance, but the look in
his eyes made the younger gentleman back away as he passed.
“Ruffian!” the older of the two women called after them. “A lady like her wed to him. You can be certain there’s a story of heartbreak for some poor mother in that!”
Aisleen did not care what was said about her, but when she reached the hallway on the second floor, she turned to Thomas and said angrily, “That was uncalled for!”
“I agree entirely,” he answered with his usual charming lilt. “The things decent folk must deal with in the bush!”
“You are laughing at me!” she replied, caught between relief and irritation that his anger had passed so quickly.
“Aye, well, better a chuckle than I put a bullet through that English’s black heart.”
The hair lifted on Aisleen’s neck. How casually he spoke of violence. “I do not agree with your decision. I think we should have offered the ladies our room.”
The familiar cock of his head told her that her words surprised him. “Now why should ye be wanting to give up the bed yer poor body’s yearning for?”
“Because those ladies appear to be, well, less suited to sleeping in tents and wagons than I.”
Thomas’s lids fluttered down. “If ye believe that they’re better than us because they wear a finer cut of cloth, then ye’ve a thing or two to learn about life in the bush. They’d have taken yer room and told ye that ye did not deserve it, all in the same breath. Ye heard him call me a damned Irishman, and to me face he said it! I’d as soon lay me fist along the side of his head as spit on him!”
Aisleen blushed because he had made his voice deliberately loud and carrying. Defeated, she turned toward the hallway. “Which room is ours?”
Thomas came up beside her, wedging them in the narrow hall. He put a finger under her chin to lift her face to his. “Ye’re as good as any of them, better to me mind. Ye’d have given up the room out of the goodness of yer heart when they clearly did not deserve yer consideration. Ye’re a grand lass, and I’m a man with a bad temper and an empty stomach. Will ye be forgiving me?”
Aisleen stared up at him because there was nowhere else to look in that moment. It was a pretty speech calculated to gain favor with her, but she could find no fault in the contrivance. He had taken her side, something she could not remember anyone ever doing before in all her life. It was so small a thing, so very simple a pleasure, but it brought tears treacherously close to the surface.
She knew that he would kiss her, and she did not even try to escape. The gentle brush of his lips on hers was more disturbing than she could have imagined. When he moved away and his face came back into focus she remembered his promise that they would discuss the matter between them.
Shaking, she turned away. This was something to guard against, she told herself She was beginning to like him.
I knew that I had seen, had seen at last
That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly If
I should rub an eye…
—The Double Vision of Michael Robartes
W. B. Yeats
Chapter Twelve
Aisleen sat by the window as she pulled a comb through her freshly washed hair. The pure blue of the mountains had intensified as the sun set until, with darkness, it faded into indigo. And with the change her mood had altered, gradually becoming as dark as night.
Gregarious voices, sudden starts of laughter, and the thread of a tune squeezed out of a concertina drifted in from the tavern next door. The bullock drivers had arrived an hour earlier. Thomas was below with them and his drovers, whom she had seen ride in at dusk. His laughter rang out clear and strong above the others, a sound she had heard often this night.
He struck up acquaintances easily, she mused. Why could she not be like him, more at ease with the world and herself? Most often, she gave the matter no thought, but tonight, listening to Thomas’s laughter magnified her feelings of isolation. She envied those who made him laugh and those who laughed with him.
She would have liked to have gone below, to sit quietly in a corner and listen to his conversation, but she did not have the courage. He found joy in the simplest things, like a ride on horseback. He had made a difficult day easy for her just by entering it. Would he remain nearby this time? Did she want him to?
She set the comb aside and leaned forward to cup her chin in her hands, braced by her elbows on the window-sill. The solitude of the night settled about her like the cool mountain breezes. In all her life, she had, made no lasting friendships. She was close to no one, had never been more important than necessary to
the people in her life.
As a child, whenever loneliness had threatened to overwhelm her, she had escaped in dreams. Now she had a husband and a new life. It was just short of miraculous, and yet she was lonelier than ever before.
She shut her eyes tightly, quite unaware of what she was doing until it was done.
Oh, bouchal, you were right. Adventures are better if they are shared!
The admission shocked her, and her eyes flew wide. What had she done? Addressing an imaginary playmate of childhood fancy was preposterous. Was she so frightened of the future that a return to childhood was preferable? Whence had come this melancholy yearning?
Thomas came through the door at that moment, a strange look on his face.
Aisleen rose quickly to her feet, embarrassed to have been found sitting by the window like a neglected waif.
“Will ye nae come below?” he questioned. “There’s a lass I want ye to meet.”
“A lass?” Aisleen questioned, the image of Sally the barmaid flashing to mind. “What lass?”
A quick grin lifted his features. “Why, the sweet
colleen
who whispers to me in me sad moments. Did I nae tell ye? I’m in league with the wee folk of the old sod.” The jest did not elicit the smile he hoped for.
Aisleen’s expression stiffened. If there was some woman whispering in his ear, no doubt she was all too human. Perhaps she had shared his company in the tavern. The reason for his laughter took on new, intolerable possibilities. While she sat near weeping for want of his smile he had—had—humiliation stung her eyes. “If you must cavort with women, please refrain from doing so in my presence!”