colours of gold by kaye dobbie - chapter sampler

7/22/2019 Colours Of Gold by Kaye Dobbie - Chapter Sampler

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First Published 2014First Australian Paperback Edition 2014ISBN 978 174356531 5

COLOURS OF GOLD© 2014 by Kaye Dobbie

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This book is sold subject to the condition that shall not, by way of trade or

otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the priorconsent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in whichit is published and without a similar condition including this condition beingimposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in anyform.

This is a work of ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are eitherthe product of the author’s imagination or are used ctitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published byHarlequin Mira An imprint of Harlequin Enterprises (Aust) Pty Ltd.Level 4, 132 Arthur StreetNORTH SYDNEY NSW 2060 AUSTRALIA

® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its corporateafliates. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in Australia, New Zealandand in other countries.

Printed and bound in Australia by Grifn Press



Annie’s Story, Present Day

‘It’s down here.’Once this had been one of the grandest hotels in Melbourne.

Te Goldminer Hotel was hugely popular when it was built dur-ing the boom times of the 1880s. But it had long since fallen intoruin, and now the site was destined for a new office block. It wasthe story of the times, and although I didn’t like it or always agree with it I’d learned not to get too obviously angry at the waste andthe fact that we were losing our history far too quickly, and no oneseemed to have the will to stop it.

Behind me Clive knocked against a piece of broken wall andcursed. ‘Are you sure this is safe?’ he asked, glancing up at the sag-

ging ceiling. ‘I have a wife and six children, you know.’‘It’s perfectly safe and no you don’t,’ I retorted. We descended some rickety stairs shored up with new wood and

now the basement was right in front of us. Te door had been takenoff its hinges and through the opening the basement stretchedbefore us in a murky labyrinth. I half expected the Minotaur to

CHAPTER ONE



8 K A Y E D O B B I E

Ten Clive turned on his flashlight and I saw it, just an old base-ment. Dust motes and mould spores did a dance in the shaft of

light. Debris littered the floor and there was a pronounced smellof damp. Crates and boxes were pushed to the walls and I couldsee rotting carpets and fabrics, the various detritus of decades. Ifollowed our guide past all of it to the far wall, and stood staringspellbound at what was before me.

Te painting had been freed of its wrappings and propped againstsome of the crates. Sagging in its ornate gilt frame, damaged by

time, neglect and incorrect storage, it was about two metres wideand a metre and a half high, and it was a sad mess. On one level Inoticed all of that, wondered if even my skills could save it, but onanother, deeper level I was already humming with excitement.

Yes, it was indeed a painting, but it was also a rompe L’oeil . What was known as a trick of the eye. A painting that seemed to

draw one into it, just as if you were watching a 3D movie. Terompe L’oeil was my speciality, which was why I’d been called ontothe site by Clive Cummings from History Victoria. o assess. odecide whether it was worth saving. Whether it was possible for meto save it.

Te painting was filthy and badly damaged in places, but when

Clive shone his flashlight across the surface I could pick out myriadsmall scenes. Vignettes. A river with a paddle-steamer and a vastbare field with gold miners beavering away. A building with a pieceof red cloth dangling from a window and a man in a checked coatstanding in front of a music hall. Tere were so many of them.

But what instantly drew my eye were the figures. Tey stoodin the immediate foreground. wo girls hand-in-hand, and one of

them was young, hardly more than a child, while the other was a woman with curly golden hair. Tey stood in front of a small rep-lica of Te Goldminer Hotel in its heyday, and they were staringat me.

Look at us, they seemed to be saying. Look what we’ve done. Tisis who we are.



C O L O U R S O F G O L D 9

In that instant I knew I was going to save this Trompe L’oeil andrestore it. And I was going to find out who the two girls were and

why they were so important to this building.‘Well?’ Behind me Clive was impatiently awaiting my decision.I turned and smiled at him and he groaned softly.‘Are you sure?’ he muttered, scratching his thinning hair. ‘It won’t

be easy carrying it up the stairs without it falling to bits, Annie.’‘Nothing that matters is easy.’‘And this matters?’

I turned back to the painting. ‘Yes. I think this is going to mattervery much.’



The Girl’s Story, 1867

She tried to open her eyes but she was tired. So tired. In the cramped,hot space in which she was trapped there wasn’t much room forair. Te curving wooden planks supported her folded body, but ahands-breadth of water swished about, murky brown river water,soaking her pinafore and her blouse and stockings. And the water

was getting deeper.Te girl was sinking.Tat was how she thought of herself: the girl. Tat was what they

had always called her. Te girl this and the girl that. She felt as ifshe’d always been nameless.

Now, memories came and went, but they were like moths flutter-

ing through the darkness, reaching the candlelight before vanishingagain. Brief flashes of illumination. She knew she was meant to die.Surely, whoever had tumbled her into this barrel and thrown herinto the river planned for her to sink without a trace? He did not

want the girl to live.Strange, then, that she was still alive.

CHAPTER TWO



C O L O U R S O F G O L D 1 1

Her arm was aching. She’d been able to push her fingers upthrough a gap between the barrel’s lid and its rim, but now they

were stuck so fast she no longer had any feeling left in them, andthe awkward stretch of her arm was threatening to tear muscles andtendons.

Another memory flickered into the light. A man, his long darkcoat flapping about him as the wind blew across the small patch ofgarden, making the dried stalks dance and jig, causing the chickensto run in fright. A man forcing her down, his hot breath in her face

as his hands took the air from her lungs and the light from her eyes. A man carrying her limp body, placing her with a strange gentlenessinto the barrel, then using his fist to hammer on the broken lid. Asection was smashed and that allowed her to breathe, but it wouldalso let the water inside so that she would sink. But as soon as he’dthrown her into the river, she’d come to her senses long enough to

thrust her hand into the gap, and for a time that had reduced the water to a trickle.

She could see a face. White with eyes as dark as coals and a faintsmell of peppermint. Confusingly, another image flashed into hermind, of the same man offering her the sweets he carried in hispockets, and she giggling at some joke or other.

He’s a good man. It’s not his fault things haven’t turned out well forhim. A woman’s voice whispered in her head, a voice she should rec-ognise but didn’t. He’s a good man, but his luck has turned him bad.

But the colours had showed her what sort of ‘good’ man he really was. Dark and swirling. Te colours had been with her for as longas she could remember. She’d believed she was the only one whocould see them, but as she grew she learned that the man with the

peppermint sweets could see them, too. He could get inside herhead just as she could see inside his. Was it his colours that swirledso blackly? Was he the one who had lost his luck?

She cried out, semi-conscious, and felt the barrel roll in the river.Tere was more water sloshing about in the bottom now. When thebarrel turned her trapped arm ensured she turned, and sometimes



1 2 K A Y E D O B B I E

her face was dangerously close to being beneath the water. Soon she would drown.

She considered it without fear, without much emotion at all. She was beyond worldly concerns. Te longing for her family was fad-ing and she was more than ready to move on to where there was nopain. She had been told once that death was nothing more than apeaceful sleep and she so desired peace.

Sounds. Voices. Te distant hum of a riverboat. Long ago shehad travelled on a riverboat with many people and there was much

sorrow. But the memory was gone before she could grasp hold of it,back into the darkness, hidden behind the man with the dark coatand the peppermint sweets.

But now the voices were louder and the boat engine nearer.Her heart began to pound. Perhaps she wasn’t ready for the here-

after after all, because suddenly she wanted, more than anything,

to see the light again and feel the cool air on her face. She wantedto live.

She tried to wriggle her fingers, but without any feeling in themshe didn’t know whether or not they were moving. She tried to callout, but her throat was swollen and aching where the man hadsqueezed his hands and she could only make a whimper.

‘Help me. Please.’Not loud enough. Her prison was being pushed along by theriver and away from the voices and the engine, for both were fad-ing now. Te barrel rolled again and the water crept up her cheek,lapped at her nose and inched towards her mouth.

* * *

Captain Arnold Potter had been watching the barrel bobbing onthe surface of the river and wondering whether it once could havebeen a beer barrel or perhaps held flour, salt, fish or meat. Wasit jettisoned when a riverboat became stuck on a sandbank andneeded to lighten its load? Te boats only took to the rivers when



C O L O U R S O F G O L D 1 3

lurking danger of reefs and sandbars. Even the best captains ranaground.

Arnold’s riverboat, Ariadne

, was a paddle-steamer, seventy-sixfeet long with a draft of two feet and three inches, her boiler wood-fired. She may be small but she was strong and he used her to pullthe timber barges back from the forests and properties along theMurray River and into the inland port of Echuca, tying up at thesawmill to unload the logs so that they could be cut down into vari-ous lengths. It was a good living but meant long weeks away from

home and he was looking forward to getting back to his wife.He found himself watching the barrel again.It rolled over, spinning in the water, and when it settled this time

it was much lower. Maybe it had sprung a leak? While he super-vised the men and their bullock teams loading the logs onto thebarge, he watched that barrel. Something about it puzzled him, but

he wasn’t sure what that something was.Te logs came from the property of Mr Charles Webster. Te

timber was mostly Murray pine, which suited the insider barge they were using. If they’d been loading red gum they would have neededan outsider or outrigger barge, because red gum was heavier thanpine and didn’t float.

Mr Webster was one of the squatters with vast acres along theMurray River. Mostly, he ran mobs of sheep, but he earned someextra cash in between shearing times by supplying Arnold with tim-ber. Te gold rush had begun sixteen years ago, and by now partsof the country were stripped completely bare of forest while there

was an ever-increasing need for building materials. Arnold enjoyeda steady income by fulfilling that need.

He wiped the dust from his face with his sleeve and squinted upat the grey-leafed gum trees that clung to the riverbank. Brightlycoloured parrots were cavorting among the creamy blossoms. Teirscreeching couldn’t be called musical, but their way of turning somer-saults as they clambered on the twigs and branches, each one trying toget to the sweetest nectar, made him chuckle. Tey didn’t need hands,



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