‘Hooshta! Hooshta!’

The camels lowered their huge heads and glowered, casting about before dropping slowly to their knees in the hot sand, waiting patiently for their cameleers to pack them again. Shovels, chairs, kerosine tins for lamps and small boxes of medicine were piled beside crates of champagne, boxes of cheap cotton and leather-bound books ordered from London, waiting patiently for invitations into their new homes in the desert. The stink of the animals blanketed the siding, and as Marigold Harrington climbed down from the train, she held a hand to her mouth.

Around her was the comfortable chaos of new arrivals in a sea of sand and flies.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the small man nearest to her as he spat on the ground in frustration. ‘Are these your camels?’ The cameleer looked confused. ‘Mine. Yes, mine.’

‘And you carry things all over the desert?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ He patted a small table strapped to the animal he’d been arguing with, and red dust exploded into the hot air as the camel sighed. ‘They carry goods for many miles.’ He glanced across

2 anthea hodgson

the street to where a butcher was loading sides of beef onto his cart while his horses danced uneasily in harness. ‘Better than those nags. Too thirsty. No patience.’ He rubbed the ear of his friend, which blinked its long eyelashes slowly. ‘My camels will cross the desert long before those horses have died and turned to soup!’

‘Do you think a camel could take me north – to my father? It might be a long way.’

‘A camel can do whatever I tell him to, but young ladies shouldn’t go north. They should stay here in Coolgardie. Young ladies don’t like north.’

‘Oh, I think I can decide what I like, Mr . . .?’

‘Mahmood,’ he told her. ‘I am Mahmood.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Mahmood. I hope that your camels are as strong as they look.’

‘They’re strong enough,’ Mahmood assured her.

‘Marigold!’ A stout woman wearing a broad hat, her bodice strug gling in the heat of the afternoon, had stepped onto the platform. ‘There you are.’

Marigold waited for her mother to join her, smoothing down her skirts crumpled from hours aboard the train from Perth. Mrs Harrington glanced uneasily at the camels. ‘Do you think the buggy to Kalgoorlie will leave directly?’ she asked. ‘I might just sit here in the shade. I’m not about to wander around in the dirt waiting for transportation in this godforsaken place.’ Marigold sighed. ‘If it’s godforsaken here, then we will certainly be busy,’ she replied. ‘And I imagine we’ll be covered in dust before sundown, so it hardly makes any difference.’

‘Marigold. We will still live by acceptable standards,’ her mother told her. ‘I have no intention of letting things go out here in the back of beyond. We’ll make our investments and holiday at Fremantle by January.’

the palace of lost virtue 3

January seemed a long time away.

‘Yes, Mother.’ Marigold nodded. ‘But I think we can be useful to the unfortunate whilst we’re here.’

‘Well, we won’t do that by striking out into the unknown. You heard what happened to that poor Scottish woman who came to find her son . . .’

‘Yes, Mother.’

Her mother sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Dead. That’s what. Had a blast of the Australian sun and lay down by the side of the road and died.’ She adjusted her hat against the furious heat. ‘So don’t think that couldn’t happen to you.’

A camel bellowed and Marigold startled. ‘I think my new camel friend would be willing to take me.’

Mrs Harrington snorted. ‘I think your new friend should remember his place.’

Mahmood gave his camel a friendly slap on the flank and the huge animal pressed his nose into his chest.

‘Goodbye, Mr Mahmood,’ Marigold said. ‘I’m certain our paths will cross again.’

‘Inshallah.’ Mahmood bowed, then began to turn his lugubrious train of camels in the red earth, heading north along the sandy track to Menzies, a chorus of crows crying into the warm sky marking his departure.

Marigold scanned the thinning crowd slowly moving away from Coolgardie station, hoping she’d see her father marching towards them with his arms outstretched in greeting. This was his adventure, and they were following him out of loyalty alone. It had pained them both to leave behind their lives in Melbourne, and Marigold feared the miles of untamed bush would swallow her father without a trace.

At home he’d been a senior member of their parish church, and speaking for the Lord had brought him status and spiritual rewards.

4 anthea hodgson

But then there’d been a new fever and he’d become obsessed with gold; had bought every paper with tales of the gold rush in Western Australia, had read all the articles aloud at least twice. He’d taken to pointing to a map of the country. It’s not so far, he would say. It’s a boat ride and a few days on horseback, that’s all. The idea of gold had seduced him almost as much as the pearly gates above, and he’d boarded a ship in Melbourne bound for Albany amid a flurry of prayers and promises that they would see him again soon, that their fortunes would be assured, that they would be able to spend the rest of their lives doing good works and living in Hawthorn, just down the street from the governor’s son and his beautiful wife.

Marigold and Evelyn had waved him off, weeping and mysti fied, wanting to support his passionate endeavour but unable to share his lust for gold. For months they lived in Melbourne on their meagre savings, and some months when money would be received in the post they would carefully store it away for the anticipated day when the worst happened and they’d hear from him no more. And then the telegram had arrived from Kalgoorlie. Herbert had found gold and they were to join him to start a new life.

The sulky, when it arrived to collect them from the train, took two hours to reach Kalgoorlie, the well-worn track carved into divots, into which the large wheels dropped, jolting them in their seats. Marigold gazed out into the bush as galahs shrieked at their progress, flutter

ing from tree to tree in search of a shadier spot.

‘Do you think Father will have com...

Better Reading

Message History

Delivery option(s)