Winter 1852. Adam has just returned from the Californian goldfields and is heading for Bendigo in Victoria, the new El Dorado. He comes across Ella, injured, penniless and with only the clothes she is wearing. Adam is the son of a convict with the determination and intelligence to ‘better’ himself. Despite her current circumstances, it is obvious to him that Ella is a lady, and although Adam might believe himself as good as any man, the class divide remains.
When Ella wakes beside an isolated lagoon, all she can remember are frightening and tantalizing pieces of a dream. Even her name isn’t her own, but one given to her by Adam, who has agreed to her travelling with him while she struggles to discover the truth. As the days go by, and their journey northwards continues, Ella learns to adjust to the harsh realities of her new life and grows to like and admire her unlikely companion.
Ella and Adam must find their way through old dangers and newfound love, to confront the shocking truth. A truth that will change their future forever.
(See below for an excerpt)
WINTER ON THE ROAD
Chapter 1
SHE WAS ALONE IN A clearing and the dark forest
was all around her. Like a great soundless wave. And
she was frightened. But even as the fear beat at her, she
knew, as if it had all happened to her before, that there
were people searching for her. And if she stayed here in
the clearing, if she stayed quite still in the darkness, she
would be found.
The wind made the tree tops billow like sails at sea.
She breathed in the sharp scent of pine and tilted her
head far back, gazing up. The moon was directly above
her, floating in a deep blue sky. It seemed benevolent, a
watchful friend. She sensed movements and sounds out
in the darkness. Voices calling, calling her name. Burning
torches flared through the thick branches. They were
looking for her. She heard her own voice calling back. She
stretched her hands out towards the darkness … and her
fingers sank into it. Soft and horrible. Like mud.
From somewhere outside the dream, she recognised
that it really was mud. The awful feel of
it forced her into consciousness. She opened her
eyes. There was a throbbing pain in her head and
her vision was cloudy, but she saw enough to know
it wasn’t night-time and she wasn’t in a pine forest.
She was lying on her stomach, her head lower than
her feet and only inches from where water lapped.
The mud was under her cheek too, warm against
her skin. She could smell it, musty and faintly rotten
with dead vegetation.
The thought brought her jerkily to her knees,
scrabbling backwards despite the shivers of nausea
and the drumming in her head. Low, scrubby bush
covered the slight slope that ran up from the water,
but a spindly sapling had raised its head above the
rest She grabbed it and used it to pull herself to her
feet. Looking back, she realised she was by a sort of
lagoon or, worse, a swamp. The water lay still and
sullen and there was no sound apart from her own
breathing.
As in the dream, she was all alone.
The light has gone strange, she thought fuzzily,
and then realised the sun, low on the western horizon,
had begun to set. The green of the trees had
become greener, the brown of the mud browner,
and the water was now shadowy and secret. She
shuddered and put her hand to her head. Her hair
was stuck down on one side with mud and when
she tried to free it she felt a large lump on her scalp.
Pain shot through her in sickening waves.
Had she fallen over? Or had she been hit? A
sudden sharp memory of hurt and terror, gone as
swiftly. It was only then, as she tried to recall the
thought, that she realised everything was gone.
The shock of it froze her. Everything that had
been and was and would be, all gone. It was as if
her life was a blackboard and someone had come
and washed it clean. She was nothing, she was
newborn, she had come to life here by the water,
in the mud.
With a gasping cry she pulled herself further
up against the thin trunk of the sapling, feeling it
bending under her weight, seeking some comfort
from another living thing no matter how unfeeling
it might be. A bird on a last foray before nightfall
scolded her, rustling amongst the leaves and twigs.
It fluttered up into the branch above her head and
gave a harsh call. The beady eye blurred … became
two … four … She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to
clear them. When the waves of dizzy faintness had
at last receded she looked again. The bird had gone
and she was alone.
Desperately she tried to remember something …
but there was nothing. Her mind had closed up,
taking all her memories with it. Her childhood,
her family, her life, all gone.
‘There must be someone,’ she told herself in a
shaking voice which was meant to be reassuring.
‘Someone must be looking for me …’
A breeze rustled the leaves, replying to her whisper,
and she felt chilled. The skin on her arms
rose up in tiny bumps, and as she rubbed them
she knew with sudden certainty that she owned
a cloak, a new dark red one. She could the heavy
weight against her shoulders, the swing of it against
her skirts. She looked down, fully expecting to see
it, and saw instead her gown, dark of colour and
now grubby with mud. Her feet were bare and
streaked with dirt.
She looked like a pauper! She might well be one,
except that she knew, again with a certainty that
could not be ignored, that she was not. She knew
she was used to being well cared for and well loved,
and while the doubts circled her like cruel children
taunting, she clung on to that knowledge.
Then why am I here? she asked herself, holding
her aching head. No one answered her. Only the
terrible quiet. A great wave of fear and loneliness
gripped her, and she slipped and almost fell, clinging
wildly to the smooth-trunked sapling. Behind
her a sudden gust of wind rippled the surface of the
lagoon, as if someone was running swiftly across it,
running after her. She felt the terror rising, and
knew in a moment she would lose what common
sense she had left and disgrace herself by screaming
hysterically.
That was when she heard the sound.
At first it was just a whisper, like a vibration in
the air. And then the whisper gained a rhythm – the
sound of a horse galloping. With a cry, she began to
push and pull her way through the scraggly bushes
on the slope, towards the top. There must be a track
of some sort up there and someone was coming.
Someone who may be able to help her!
The dull striking of the horse’s hooves was getting
louder. She reached the scrub edging the bank
and burst through at a run, and the beast was upon
her.
It was a brown horse. An ugly creature, she
thought, even as she screamed. It veered to the
side, missing her by a breath. She covered her eyes
with her hands like a child. The rider was shouting
‘Whoa!’ and pulling at the reins. The horse whinnied,
rearing half-heartedly on broad haunches.
But it required effort to play up, and the horse was
tired. It tossed its head a few times just to show its
displeasure, and then stood still.
Slowly, she spread her fingers and peeped out.
The rider was staring at her as if he could hardly
believe his eyes. He was so thin, his clothing flapped
on him. He wore a dusty felt hat over his wild
black hair, and his beard was the same colour only
streaked with silver, and his dark eyes were sunken
in a gaunt face. He said some words she was sure
she had never heard before – was he a foreigner?
But then she realised he must have been swearing,
for he went on in a gravelly voice, ‘Are yer hurt?’
Was she hurt? She tried to clear her thoughts,
but the scramble to the track had brought back the
dizziness and she suddenly felt very peculiar. ‘I’ve
hurt my head,’ she managed. Her voice sounded
soft and clear and educated, completely at odds
with her appearance.
He gawked at her. If she had been an African lion
he couldn’t have looked any more astonished.
She swayed, almost fell. That had him off his
horse, but slowly, looking about him as if he
expected someone else to pop out. She saw his
hand slide across his waist, and noticed that he had
a pistol there, tucked into his belt. He came closer,
but still with caution.
‘Who are yer?’ he demanded.
Suddenly she was very tired; her mouth trembled.
‘I don’t remember who I am. I don’t remember
anything. I woke up just now, down by the water,
and I don’t remember anything.’
He stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘Down by Seaton’s
Lagoon?’
She nodded.
He came closer, frowning. ‘Blonde, blue eyes,’ he
muttered to himself. ‘And pretty … under the dirt.
Hey!’ His eyes widened. ‘I found some shoes lyin’
in the middle of the track about a mile back. I put
‘em in me saddle bag. Maybe they’re yours?’ Then
the frown deepened and he put out a hand and
touched her temple. When he took it away, there
was blood on his fingertips, dark and sticky, like
jam.
‘Yer hurt,’ he said blankly. And then, scowling,
‘Come on. I’ll take yer back to me friend.’
Back to his friend? she thought. But her head
was spinning too much to ask questions.
‘You shouldn’t go off on yer own,’ he was muttering.
‘Ain’t safe these days. There’re thieves in
these parts’d do yer in for a penny!’
She let him prattle on, as he lifted her up into
the saddle. He seemed concerned for her and that
was comforting. Surely a man wasn’t concerned
for you if he meant you harm?
‘You must take me to the nearest town,’ she
informed him, trying to be heard above the hammering
in her temples. The order sounded familiar
– she was used to giving them.
But he wasn’t having any of that. ‘I’ll take yer to
Adam,’ he replied firmly.
Who was Adam, she meant to ask. But the horse
was moving uneasily, disliking the stranger on its
back, and she had to concentrate on staying on.
The man climbed up behind her.
‘Come on then. It’s not far,’ he said in a soothing
rumble. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks
and set it to a trot, back the way he had come.
Her head was coming off. She kept expecting
it to roll over her shoulder and bounce along the
track behind them. The image made her smile to
herself, although she knew she must be out of her
senses to be imagining such things.
The horse was stubbornly slow, resenting its
double load. The journey seemed to go on and on.
Her head drooped in pain and exhaustion and she
was almost asleep when a flying beetle blundered,
whirring, against her face. She felt the scratchy legs
on her cheek and cried out, pushing it away. The
thought of it tangled in her hair made her shudder.
After that, she stayed awake.
The man spoke to her occasionally, perhaps to
satisfy himself she was still conscious, and every
time he spoke his breath puffed like white smoke
in the frozen air. He told her his name was Harvey,
that he had had some bad news and was on his way
to an inn to drown his sorrows – he said he had
almost forgotten the taste of rum. Somehow, she
got the impression that he worked on a farm with
sheep, a lonely place. She remembered him saying,
‘Nearly there,’ a couple of times. And once, ‘Yer’ll
be safe with Adam. He’ll know what to do for yer.’
And the confidence in his voice instilled confidence
in her.
It was beyond twilight now, but the moon was up
enough for them to see their way. The track was a
pale, narrow ribbon curling into the darkness, and
the trees were black shadows bending over them
with evil intent. She stared about her, shivering,
half delirious. Perhaps I am dead, she thought. Perhaps
I died back at Seaton’s Lagoon, and this man
who calls himself Harvey is Death, and he’s taking
me to Heaven … or Hell.
She tried to turn her head, to see if beneath the
wild black beard was a smooth white skull. But
although his face was gaunt, it was not frightening.
He gave her a reassuring grin and she realised he
had hardly any teeth. And then the horse took a
curve in the track and suddenly there was a camp
site immediately before them.
She blinked. The flare of the campfire threw
strange shadows among the trees. She hardly
noticed the cart drawn up under their shelter, or
the horse cropping nearby, or the dog barking. Her
eyes went to the man squatting beside the fire, his
head up, watching. As the horse trotted, puffing,
towards him, he rose slowly to his feet, and the
light of the fire coloured him red and orange, as if
he too were burning.
Harvey called out in a loud, gruff voice. ‘Adam!’
And then added in that soothing rumble, ‘Here’s
Adam. Yer safe now.’
The horse came to a standstill, too tired to complain
as the dog circled it, still barking. Harvey
swung down, turning to help her to the ground.
But as her bare feet came into contact with the
hard earth her knees buckled. He grabbed her
awkwardly under the arms.
‘Wolf!’ Adam called the dog to heel. And then,
‘Is she hurt?’
‘Someone’s clobbered her all right. Bushrangers,
I reckon. Hit her and threw her into Seaton’s
Lagoon … or near enough. She’d just crawled back
up to the track when I found her. Nearly ran her
down.’
‘Do you know her?’ Adam asked.
‘Sounds Scotch to me, but I’ve never seen her
before around here.’
She lifted her head with a mighty effort, drawn
by the need to see as well as hear what was going
on. Harvey was frowning at his friend, but Adam
was looking at her. He was of medium height and
strongly built. Fair hair straggled unkempt over his
shoulders and a beard covered most of his face. He
was younger than the other man, but he looked just
as rough and grubby – like a tinker, she thought.
And his eyes were a tinker’s eyes, dark and liquid
and very intelligent.
He seemed to take in her situation with one hard
look. ‘I’ll see to her head,’ he said, and slipped his
arm around her, taking her weight from the older
man. For a moment her sheer helplessness frightened
her and she struggled in the stranger’s grip,
but he murmured low in her ear, ‘I won’t hurt you,’
and she subsided, leaning against him.
‘Yer’ll need to wash it,’ Harvey said in a matter-
of-fact voice. ‘Salt’ll do, if you’ve nothing else.
Don’t like treatin’ head wounds meself. Never
know what the damage is inside, where yer can’t
see. Might be better to take her to a quack.’
Adam barely glanced at him. He helped her over
to the campfire, gripping her arms as he set her
down beside it. The warmth was immediate – she
had not realised until now how cold she was – and
she gave a great shiver. He moved a billy of water
onto the coals to boil, then went over to the cart
and came back with a blanket to wrap around her.
‘Can yer cope, boy?’ Harvey asked. He had been
watching, moving from foot to foot restlessly.
‘Aye, I’ll take care of her. She’s in your debt for
this, Harvey.’
Harvey murmured something, looking bashful.
‘I’ll get on to the inn then,’ he added, more loudly.
‘I’ve been lookin’ forward to a drink, and I don’t
reckon I can wait for mornin’.’ He licked his lips
to prove it.
She straightened her back and struggled to find
her voice. ‘Thank you, Mr Harvey.’
Harvey smiled back at her gummily. ‘Yer a lucky
man, Adam,’ he said.
The comment seemed strange. Surely no man
would consider himself lucky to be lumbered with
an injured woman who had no memory of her
past. She closed her eyes. The two men were speaking,
but in voices so low they were inaudible. The
dog, Wolf, brushed against her, sniffing curiously at
her skirts, and then sank down by the fire with a
sigh. She heard the sound of Harvey’s horse moving
away into the darkness, quickening to a gallop.
She heard the tinker – Adam – step closer, and realised
he was removing the boiling water from the
coals.
She opened her eyes a slit, all she could manage,
and watched him. He was adding what looked
like salt to the water, swirling it around to dissolve
it. ‘To clean your wound,’ he explained without
looking up. Then, with a quick glance, ‘Did Harvey
give you somethin’ to drink?’
She shook her head and he went over to a rolled
bundle of blankets on the ground – his bed for
the night. He came back with a water bottle and
held it out to her. She put the opening to her
mouth and swallowed the cool, brackish liquid. It
was heavenly, but when she tried to gulp more he
removed it from her.
‘That’s enough for now. Too much and you
might bring the lot up.’
He set the bottle down and returned to the cart.
Wolf heaved himself up and trotted after him. She
let her eyes wander to the fire, mesmerized by the
colours and the way in which they were constantly
changing. Gold and orange, then flaring up into
angry red as the chill breeze caught them. That
same breeze whirled the smoke into her face and
she coughed, eyes stinging.
‘Are these yours?’
His voice startled her. She blinked and tried once
more to focus properly. Adam was holding something
else up, and she realised that it was a pair of
shoes.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘Where did you
find them?’
‘Harvey found them along the track,’ he told her
evenly. ‘You must’ve dropped them … or someone
else did.’
‘I don’t remember,’ she admitted at last. ‘I don’t
remember anything.’
He stared at her blankly. ‘You mean … nothin’ at
all?’
‘Nothing. Not even my name.’ The thudding in
her head was getting worse and she had to close
her eyes tightly to ease it
‘Not even your name!’ he repeated to himself.
And then, gently, ‘Here, try these shoes on.’ He
knelt at her feet and slipped one shoe on. It fitted
perfectly, as only an old pair of shoes can, as if the
leather has moulded itself to the contours of the
wearer’s foot and become almost a second skin.
‘They mine.’ Her voice was strange and high, like
a child’s.
The tinker was looking at her and suddenly his
eyes were glinting with laughter. ‘Maybe we’ve
found a name for you, Cinderella.’
Bemused, she stared back at him. His face was
slowly beginning to turn, which was very odd,
she thought. And then she realised that the whole
world was turning, around and around and around.
She was spinning towards the dark forest she had
been dreaming of while she lay by the lagoon. She
was among the straight trunks, the moon sailing
above, the smell of pine filling her head.
And then there was nothing.
Her fingers moved, twitching, feeling. But this
time it was cloth beneath them and not mud. It
was warm and soft, and it covered her entirely,
keeping out the chill. And this time it was not the
smell of decaying vegetation but smoke, catching
at her throat and making her want to cough. It
overlay other smells, unfamiliar smells of earth and
bush and dog.
She opened her eyes and found that she was
lying on a blanket. There was another blanket
tucked over her and, close by, the fire had burned
down to glowing coals. Wolf lay at her side, his
rough grey fur making him look remarkably like
his namesake. She lightly touched his head and he
opened one brown eye, watching her with drowsy
contentment.
It was very late. She could tell by the fire and
the stillness. There was a breathtaking chill in the
air outside her cosy nest. She moved, stretching
cramped muscles. Her head felt different and when
she put her hand up she realised her wound had
been cleaned and some sort of makeshift bandage
wrapped around it.
‘Are you thirsty?’
The voice was unfamiliar. She turned her head
towards it and felt the throbbing pain return. He
was a few steps from where she lay, a shadow half
risen from the ground. At her movement he stood
up and came towards her. Wolf thumped his tail.
She remembered him then; the fair-haired tinker
with the dark eyes. What was his name? Adam, that
was it. The tinker called Adam.
‘I am thirsty,’ she said. An understatement: her
throat was dry as dust.
He stooped over her, helping her to sit up and sip
from a mug. The water was still brackish and she
gagged. He stayed kneeling beside her, watching
her closely, as if expecting her to say or do something.
Or, she thought wryly, expecting her to be
sick.
The water hovered in her throat a moment and
then mercifully slid down. She breathed a deep
sigh of relief – she didn’t want to be sick in front
of him. She wished she wasn’t so dirty and dishevelled,
with her hair all down and her legs showing.
It made her feel even more vulnerable than she
was.
She lifted her chin and croaked politely, ‘Thank
you.’
He was silent, still watching her. Her head was
pounding now as if someone were jumping up and
down in it.
‘That will be all,’ she murmured, hardly aware of
what she said, only wishing the thumping in her
head would go away.
He gave a startled crack of laughter. ‘No, that’s
not all, Cinderella. I have to see you safely first.’
Slowly, carefully, she forced her eyes back to him.
‘Do you?’
‘I feel it as an obligation,’ he added quietly.
‘My head hurts,’ she complained.
He sat back with a smile. ‘So it should. I don’t
suppose it helps for me to tell you it could’ve been
worse?’
She grimaced, and that hurt more. ‘No, it doesn’t’
‘There’ll be a doctor somewhere along the track,’
he added. ‘You’ll just have to make do until then.’
The dark eyes surveyed her from the shadows of
his face. She remembered the impression she had
had of him from the first … that he was a tinker.
She asked him if he was.
He took his time in answering. ‘I’ve bought
meself a horse and cart, and I intend to make
money selling goods on the Bendigo diggings. I
suppose that does make me a sort of tinker.’ He
smiled. ‘I’ve got blankets, boots, clothing, cloth,
pans, picks, nails, flour, salt, sugar, raisins, saltfish,
tea and half a dozen good sized cheeses.’ He
winked. ‘All the things that make money on the
goldfields, Cinderella.’
‘Goldfields?’ she repeated softly.
He chuckled. ‘You must’ve hit your head hard!
The gold rush, Cinderella, that has this place
turned arse over. Ballarat and Mount Alexander
and Bendigo. They’re the main fields, although
there’ve been other smaller rushes. Melbourne’s
empty of all but the women and children, and the
harbour’s full of empty ships. Every able-bodied
man has up and left for the diggings to make his
fortune. Every week, it seems, there’re more wild
stories. I’ve heard you can pick gold nuggets up off
the ground like potatoes.’ But he looked skeptical.
‘Everyone’s on the move. You can’t have forgotten
that?’
‘No,’ she said slowly, cautiously testing her
memories as she might the first steps on a shaky,
swinging bridge across some bottomless ravine.
‘I believe I do remember the gold rush.’ She was
so pleased and grateful to have remembered, she
beamed up at him.
He smiled and patted her shoulder in a gesture
at once comforting and congratulatory. His sleeves
were rolled up to his elbows and there was a blur
of colour on his brown forearm, a dazzle of blues
and greens. A tattoo, she thought. He has a tattoo.
Briefly, it seemed as though that meant something
to her.
On impulse she reached out and caught his hand
in hers so that she could have a closer look. The
tattoo portrayed a mermaid, curled sinuously across
the width of his forearm, waves of fair hair snaking
over but not quite covering her naked upper body.
Beneath her curving fish tail was a date – 1849.
The mermaid was beautiful, but so much nakedness
… she was taken aback. And yet the face was
somehow familiar. She spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘I
know her, don’t I?’
Adam had lost his smile. ‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘Or
near enough as makes no difference.’ Her eyes
widened in surprise. She realised that she was still
holding his hand and dropped it.
‘But you don’t know me,’ she whispered. ‘Do
you?’
Adam shook his head. ‘Never met you before in
me life, Cinderella.’
She spoke again, more sharply, to hide her embarrassment.
‘What year is it now? Is it still 1849?’
Laughter danced in his eyes as if the serious
moment had never been. ‘No, it’s 1852. Winter,
1852.’
She nodded slowly. The year meant nothing.
‘Could I be travelling to Melbourne? Are we far
from there?’
He frowned. ‘About twenty-five mile. But the
road over the Keilor Plains is already a quagmire
from the rain and all the traffic headin’ north. We
can’t go back there. It’s bad enough up ahead from
what I hear. In good weather it takes about a week
to get from Melbourne to the Bendigo Creek but
if this rain keeps up, it’ll take that long to get one
mile.’ He paused. ‘As I say, I’m bound for the Bendigo
diggings, but I could leave you at one of the
inns along the way.’ But he looked dubious, and
she felt a sharp jab of loss at the thought of being
left with strangers. Already this tinker had become
someone to cling to in a world of confusion.
‘Maybe I was travelling to the goldfields, too,’ she
said quickly.
‘Well … perhaps. It’s possible you were taken by
bushrangers. It happens. There are plenty of ‘em
around, lookin’ for easy pickings. It could be your
husband wrote and told you he’d struck it rich.
Sometimes miners do that, send for their wives and
families. Do you wear a wedding band?’
She lifted her hand and looked at her fingers.
There was no ring but on the third finger of her
left hand there was a pale circlet on her flesh where
a ring had been. She stared until her eyes began to
ache but it was no use. Her mind simply refused to
divulge any of its secrets.
‘Stolen probably,’ he said, with a grimace.
‘Well, at least we’ve discovered you’re Mrs. Cinderella
and if you’ve a husband somewhere out
there he’ll likely come lookin’ for you. I know I
would.’
She hardly heard him. She felt so weary suddenly.
‘You can’t keep calling me that,’ she murmured,
and closed her eyes. That’s not a proper name.’
Somewhere there were people who loved her,
somewhere there was a home she knew well. It
did not seem right that she should be here with
this stranger, in the silent, lonely bush. Perhaps,
she thought, in the morning everything will be all
right again.
‘Cinderella suits you.’ His voice came through
the rising tide of sleep. ‘But for now I can call you
Mrs Seaton. That’s where you came from, wasn’t it?
Seaton’s Lagoon …’
Cinderella Seaton. It was a name, and would do
as well as any other. His voice faded to nothing.
Beneath the warmth of her blanket, she slept.
