Her Rags-To-Riches Christmas

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Glancing across at Alice, he saw her pink cheeks and nose and couldn’t help but smile. Now they were shielded under the large bonnet she’d brought with her, but no doubt her skin was still adjusting to the strength of the sun here.

In profile, with her blue eyes staring out over the dusty fields, she looked beautiful. Unlike the ladies of London he’d been socialising with these past couple of years she wore her hair loose, the gold-red strands curling around her shoulders in natural waves. In the sunlight it glimmered like a precious metal and George had the urge to reach out and check it was real.

‘Would you like me to take you home first?’ he asked. The ride would be long and the sun was especially hot. It was a lot to ask of someone to be out in the heat for such a time.

Immediately she shook her head, then seemed to consider a moment.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

He had to hide a smile. Alice was suspicious and untrusting, but for a moment she’d put her welfare in his hands out of choice rather than necessity. It might have only lasted a moment, but it was a start.

‘To see a man who knows more about this land than anyone I’ve ever met.’

She frowned for a moment, as if considering her options.

‘You mean an aboriginal man, don’t you?’ she asked eventually.

He nodded. ‘Djalu is one of the wisest men I know.’

‘Is he dangerous?’

George smiled, thinking of the wizened old man who didn’t know how old he was, but told everyone he must be over a hundred.

‘No, not dangerous. Not dangerous at all.’

‘And he can speak English?’

George nodded. It had amazed him, too, the first time he’d met Djalu, to hear clear and fluent English coming out of a mouth that had such a different native language.

Alice seemed to consider for a moment, as if weighing up her options, then nodded. ‘I would like to come.’

He felt inordinately pleased and had to school his face into a neutral expression to stop the pleasure showing on it. Perhaps it was the loneliness that had sneaked up on him during the long voyage home or perhaps it was the knowledge that his two closest friends had moved on somewhat with their lives, but he found he was enjoying Alice’s company more than he should. He needed to remind himself she was a convict worker, nothing more. A convict worker who already thought the worst of everyone. He needed to keep his distance.

They rode over the dusty fields, sticking to the perimeters of those that were used for crops, only riding through the centre of the large open spaces George had cultivated for his thousands of cattle. As they rode in the distance they saw some farm workers, toiling away in the beating sun, but no one close enough to greet.

It took an hour and a half to reach Djalu’s house, a neat wooden hut with a fresh coat of paint on the door. The old man himself was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair just outside the door in the shade of a eucalyptus tree.

‘Australia’s prodigal son returns,’ Djalu said in greeting, a wide smile stretched across his face. ‘I was worried you might have found something to keep you away. Especially when those two convicts came back two years ago.’

Although he, Robertson and Crawford had all set sail together for England, circumstances out of their control had meant both George’s friends had cut their trips short and boarded ships for Australia long before George had been ready to come home.

‘Mudga dhurdi,’ George said in greeting, causing the old man to open his mouth wide and begin guffawing with laughter.

‘Your pronunciation hasn’t improved in your absence,’ Djalu said with a shake of his head. George saw the old man turn his gaze on Alice and waited as he looked her up and down, smiling genially all the time. ‘Your wife is far too pretty for you,’ he said after a few moments.’ He turned to Alice. ‘You’re far too pretty for a rugged old man like him.’

‘She’s not my wife,’ George said at the same instant that Alice spoke up.

‘I’m not his wife.’

Djalu looked at them both for a long moment, then shrugged. ‘It is a shame. Fitzgerald is always alone.’ He turned his attention back to George. ‘It is not good to be alone in this world, my friend.’

It would not do to point out the old man was alone. Over the years George had found out a little of his history. It wasn’t pleasant or comfortable. Djalu had always lived in the area, travelling and living off the land as the native people of Australia had been doing for centuries. His stories told of how he’d been there when the first fleet had arrived, been dazzled and awed by the arrival of a shipload of Englishmen. Then in the smallpox outbreak that followed he’d lost his wife. Disease after disease, new to his tribe, had ripped everyone he had ever loved from him within ten years of the English landing at Botany Bay.

‘Would you care for some bark tea?’ Djalu motioned for George and Alice to sit, pointing at the only other available seat, a roughly hewn wooden bench that would only just fit both of them.

Alice hesitated for a moment, glancing at George, then perched herself on the very edge of the bench. George sat down next to her, doing everything he could not to touch her, but his legs brushing against her anyway. It was warm even in the shade of the tree and George shrugged off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and running a hand around the back of his neck to try to cool himself. Next to him he could feel the heat coming off Alice’s body and he wondered how uncomfortable she must be in the tight constraints of her dress. An unbidden image of her loosening the ties at her back and letting the dress drop down to her hips popped into George’s mind. In it she was looking over her shoulder at him enticingly.

George almost laughed—he couldn’t imagine Alice ever looking at him like that. He glanced across at her, hoping she couldn’t sense the subtle change in his demeanour. He needed to stop having these inappropriate thoughts, otherwise he was just as bad as she’d imagined him to be. Just as lecherous as all the other men who’d tried to take advantage of her. Just as bad as his father.

‘Mr Fitzgerald won’t bite you,’ Djalu said, frowning at the stiff way Alice was leaning away from George. ‘He’s a good man, not like those brutes on the ships.’

George was always amazed at how perceptive the old man was. In just a few short minutes he’d analysed Alice’s behaviour and come to the correct conclusion.