Band of Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kitty replied simultaneously.
    Miss Pearce looked from Rian’s fair skin to Kitty’s, then to Amber’scaramel-coloured complexion, her face giving nothing away. ‘You’re a very pretty girl, aren’t you?’ she said. She tilted her head to one side. ‘How old are you, dear?’
    ‘I’m fourteen,’ Amber replied.
    ‘Mmm, very nice,’ Miss Pearce said, somewhat speculatively. ‘You will need to keep an eye on her, Captain. A pretty young face is a welcome sight on any goldfield.’
    Kitty stared at her. ‘What was it that you said you sold, Miss Pearce?’ she asked, her voice as cold as the weather.
    ‘I don’t think I did, Mrs Farrell.’
    Kitty slipped her hand into Amber’s. They rode in silence after that.
    Dusk was approaching when the coach began to rattle past clusters of small buildings, most of them hardly more than shanties. Both sides of the road revealed evidence of mining in the piles of dirt and the shadowed pits and dips, the ravaged land dotted with small tents and lean-tos, and strange sail-like structures thrusting upwards into the gloom. Half a mile on, a hotel with glazed sash-windows and a fancy lamp over the door appeared out of the dusk. Soon, the shanties were replaced by more substantial and permanent-looking buildings, and Kitty saw that interspersed with a number of well-built houses were stores, a boarding house, offices and various business premises. But still the diggings were evident, encroaching almost upon the rear of the buildings on both sides of the road.
    The coach came to a halt outside a solid two-storeyed establishment, its signage proclaiming that it was Bath’s Hotel. Miss Lily Pearce stretched elegantly, then gathered her cape around her.
    ‘Well, it was lovely travelling with you all.’ Her gaze lingered on Rian. ‘I hope to see you again, Captain Farrell. I’m sure our paths will cross, aren’t you?’
    Then she opened the door and was gone.
    Simon retrieved his hat from the luggage rack. ‘She was certainly a piece of work, wasn’t she?’
    ‘Didn’t you like her, Ma?’ Amber asked.
    ‘No, actually, I didn’t,’ Kitty replied tersely, gathering her things.
    ‘Ma?’
    ‘What, love?’
    ‘I didn’t like her either. She made me feel…strange.’
    ‘Well, you’re not strange, sweetheart,’ Rian said, pulling Amber close and giving her a quick hug. ‘You’re just right.’ But over her head, his eyes met Kitty’s, his face expressing both offence and anger.
    ‘Well, she’s gone now,’ Kitty said, ‘and let’s hope our paths don’t cross again.’
    She stepped down from the coach and onto the verandah of Bath’s Hotel, where they intended to lodge for the night. While the coachman passed down their luggage to Simon and Rian, she wandered along the boards until she came to a gap between buildings, and paused to look south across the Ballarat basin.
    Spread before her in the middle distance were hundreds of fires, the smoke rising upwards and mingling with the settling mist, the flickering flames throwing countless tents and rough little shelters into jagged relief. There was barely a tree left standing, and the ground illuminated by the fires looked as pockmarked as though from a fierce and sustained artillery barrage. On the cold night air came the howls and barks of dozens of dogs, the lonely, mournful lowing of bullocks, and the smells of smoke and sour earth, mouldering canvas and human refuse.
    It seemed to Kitty that she was staring straight into Hell.

Chapter Three
    K itty poked an experimental foot from beneath the bedclothes, then braved the chill to cross to the window. She rubbed a circle of condensation off the glass. The view was certainly a little less daunting than it had been the night before, but the scene was still one of organised chaos.
    ‘Is there a frost?’ Rian asked.
    Kitty nodded. ‘Quite a heavy one. I hope our new house isn’t down there in the basin.’
    ‘Actually, I think it might be,’ Rian muttered, then