Araluen Read online

  From stage actor and international television star to blockbuster best-selling author, Judy Nunn's career has been meteoric.

  Her first forays into adult fiction resulted in what she describes as her 'entertainment set'. The Glitter Game, Centre Stage and Araluen, three novels set in the worlds of television, theatre and film respectively, each became instant bestsellers.

  Next came her 'city set': Kal, a fiercely passionate novel about men and mining set in Kalgoorlie; Beneath the Southern Cross, a mammoth achievement chronicling the story of Sydney since first European settlement; and Territory, a tale of love, family and retribution set in Darwin.

  Territory, together with Judy's next novel, Pacific, a dual story set principally in Vanuatu, placed her firmly in Australia's top-ten bestseller list. Her following works, Heritage, set in the Snowies during the 1950s, Floodtide, based in her home state of Western Australia, and Maralinga, have consolidated her position as one of the country's leading fiction writers. Her eagerly awaited new novel, Tiger Men, will publish in November 2011.

  Judy Nunn's fame as a novelist is spreading rapidly. Her books are now published throughout Europe in English, German, French, Dutch and Czech.

  Judy lives with her husband, actor-author Bruce Venables, on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

  By the same author

  The Glitter Game

  Centre Stage

  Kal

  Territory

  Beneath the Southern Cross

  Pacific

  Heritage

  Floodtide

  Maralinga

  Tiger Men

  Children's fiction

  Eye in the Storm

  Eye in the City

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Araluen

  9781742741789

  An Arrow book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Random House Australia 1994

  This Arrow edition published 1999, 2007, 2011

  Copyright © Judy Nunn 1994

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Nunn, Judy.

  Araluen/Judy Nunn.

  ISBN 978 1 86471 245 2 (pbk).

  A823.3

  The author would like to thank

  Dr Grahame Hookway in Perth,

  Robyn Gurney and Sue Greaves in

  Sydney and Carmen Duncan in

  New York for invaluable assistance

  in the researching of this book.

  For my husband Bruce Venables

  For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  The Rape of Lucrece

  Come ye back to Araluen

  Ancient warrior distant traveller

  Tread ye softly wake me gently

  Whisper to me all your woes.

  Let the place of waterlilies

  Soothe your pain and ease your sorrow

  Sleep forever on my hillside

  Where the timeless vine doth grow.

  ANON

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  IMPRINT PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BOOK FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  BOOK FIVE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PREVIEW OF ELIANNE

  BONUS CHAPTER SAMPLER

  TIGER MEN

  OTHER TITLES BY JUDY NUNN

  RANDOM HOUSE

  BOOK ONE

  The

  Old Days

  (1849 - 1873)

  CHAPTER ONE

  George and Richard

  IT WAS A HOT, harsh day, mid-January in the Southern Hemisphere. George and Richard stood at the portside bow of the barque Henrietta and watched the rugged coastline slipping by. Neither spoke. After three months at sea even Richard had run out of words. Bored and restless, no longer homesick, no longer seasick, they simply ached to set foot once more on solid ground.

  But as the vessel rounded the southern headland, their torpor lifted and they gazed ahead, awestruck.

  ‘My God!’ Richard breathed. ‘They told us it was beautiful. But look at it, George. Just look at it!’

  And the Henrietta sailed into the womb of Sydney Harbour.

  George and Richard Ross were remittance men. They'd been banished to the Colonies by an irate father who was sick to death of buying them out of trouble — gambling and women, mainly. Howard Ross had paid for their passage to Australia, given them each the healthy sum of five hundred pounds to get started and told them not to return to England for five years.

  ‘Both of you will receive one hundred pounds remittance every quarter,’ he announced. ‘If you've not straightened yourselves out within five years, then I wash my hands of you. You forfeit any further monies and you're on your own.’

  Howard was a tough man and he meant it, despite the tearful protestations of his wife, Emily, who was particularly worried about Richard, the youngest of her brood of seven.

  ‘He's not yet twenty, Howard, and he has a weak chest.’

  ‘Rubbish — it's all those cigars. He's a malingerer.’ Before his wife could protest further, he added, ‘If he's consumptive, the dry climate'll do him good.’ And that was the end of the argument.

  Howard didn't like Richard much, he never had, but he was sorry to see George go. He had a soft spot for George. But he couldn't show favouritism, he told himself. Both boys appeared to have inherited the weak strain that ran in the Ross family and the only way to strengthen them was to boot them out of the nest. The remaining boys had proved that they were more than capable of running the highly successful family business and the two girls had been satisfactorily married off. The House of Ross had a reputation to uphold, a reputation not only for the manufacture of the highest quality steel cutlery, but for the exemplary behaviour of its members — members of o
ne of the finest families in the county, or so Howard firmly believed.

  George was devastated by his father's decision. Although he was only twenty-one, he had a strong sense of family and had presumed that, after sowing a few wild oats, he would take his correct place in the dynasty. He would work alongside his older brothers. He would marry and he would produce sons as a true Ross should.

  No amount of argument could dissuade his father and George certainly refused to beg. Not that begging would have changed the situation. Even if it could have, George would beg to no man. Despite his father's opinion, young George was not a person of weak character. His penchant for women and gambling had been directly attributable to youth and to the influence of his younger brother. Indeed, it was his younger brother who was George's one true weakness. He had inherited his mother's need to nurture Richard. Richard was fully aware of this and used it unashamedly.

  ‘For goodness' sake, George, old man,’ he chaffed, ‘stop being so melodramatic. It's only for five years. We'll have a wonderful time — it will be an adventure.’ The idea of travelling halfway round the world was exciting to Richard and he was not the least bit daunted by the prospect of what might be in store for him at the other end. After all, George was with him. George would look after him. George always did.

  So it was, then, that on a crisp autumn day in mid-September, 1849, George and Richard Ross set sail for the Colony of New South Wales aboard the Henrietta.

  It was a sweltering Sydney summer. Even the nights afforded no relief from the oppressive heat. ‘It's not always like this,’ George and Richard were informed. ‘This is a heatwave — things will get better.’ But such reassurances couldn't change Richard's mind. His desire for adventure quickly waned in Sydney. It wasn't just the heat. After the first flush of excitement at the sight of its magnificent harbour, he had decided that Sydney was a grubby town. He missed the green hills of Cheshire.

  ‘This is a hateful place,’ he complained. ‘Look at it! Space all around us and yet people build these horrid little terraced houses in imitation of the squalid parts of London! You'd think they'd know better.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ was George's retort. ‘There are some magnificent houses in Sydney.’

  But, as usual, Richard wasn't listening. ‘There's nothing here but dust and heat and flies and scrawny trees with no colour,’ he continued. ‘Can't we go somewhere green?’

  ‘No, we can't,’ George answered dismissively. ‘The whole of the country's like this — you'd better start getting used to it.’

  ‘No, it isn't,’ Richard insisted. ‘Do you remember that German chap on the boat? The one who was joining his brother in Adelaide? He said there were valleys outside the town that reminded him of the Rhine. Why don't we go there? Please, George, let's go there.’ When George looked as if he might be starting to weaken, Richard coughed pathetically and added, ‘Besides, this dust is shockingly painful to my lungs.’

  George laughed out loud. ‘And you are shockingly painful in your transparency, Dickie.’

  Richard just grinned back. It was wonderful having a big brother like George.

  Three months after their arrival in Australia, George and Richard Ross bought fifty acres of prime, green land in a valley not far from the township of Adelaide.

  Richard was not strong enough to involve himself in physical labour so he stayed in town while the homestead was being built. Between sating his desires at night and trotting out in the dray several times a week to see how George and the men were going with the building, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  Adelaide was a far more pleasing town to Richard than Sydney. It was less grubby and cramped, and he found the freestanding stone cottages charming. Although Sydney Harbour had been impressive, he preferred the tranquil beauty of the Torrens River, and the surrounding green hills reminded him of Cheshire.

  But it wasn't just the bucolic aspect of the town which appealed to him. Beneath its tranquil facade, Adelaide had plenty to offer the hedonist in Richard. He quickly acquainted himself with its more select brothels and gambling dens and soon became a popular member of the flamboyant Adelaide society which flourished after sundown.

  George was aware that Richard was behaving true to form, but after one token lecture he gave up trying to amend his brother's behaviour. He didn't have time to reform Richard. There was too much to be done. He kept a tight hold of the purse strings, however, handing over a moderate weekly allowance and turning a blind eye. If Richard wished to lose his money in a poker game, then that was his choice.

  George was also fully aware that Richard was using his weak physical condition to escape any form of physical labour, but he didn't care. It didn't bother him one bit, because George was filled with a joy he'd never known was possible. He loved this land. He revelled in the physical exertion and the feeling of well-being it gave to his body, which was turning harder and browner by the day. And he loved the freedom from his domineering father and the stultifying family business. Who the hell needed cutlery anyway? he decided with abandon. Eat with your hands. Do everything with your hands — fell your trees, build your houses, till your soil. And, as the sweat poured from his brow, he'd clutch fists full of earth to his chest and laugh for sheer happiness.

  ‘Araluen. That's what we're going to call the place,’ he announced one day.

  ‘Araluen?’ Richard queried. ‘What on earth does "Araluen" mean?’

  ‘“Place of water lilies”,’ George explained. ‘It's an Aboriginal term. I learnt it from one of the locals.’

  ‘I haven't seen any water lilies.’

  ‘That's because you never look. Take a trip to the creek down at the eastern end of the valley. There's a waterhole there covered in them.’

  ‘Very well. Araluen it is, then.’

  George didn't pay too much attention to Richard's many helpful suggestions regarding the building. They were usually made to impress whichever young woman had accompanied him that day to view the site and the emerging homestead.

  ‘But don't you think the door should go there, George?’ Richard would question his brother with a nudge and a wink that said ‘make me look good', and George would grin and reply, ‘Good idea, Dickie, damn good idea'. Despite everything Richard's charm was irresistible, and he invariably managed to make George laugh. He's incorrigible, George thought with a wealth of fondness.

  Once the homestead was completed, Richard was bored. He sat on the spacious verandah watching George and the men building the barn and wished he was back in town. It was much more diverting there.

  ‘You'd be less bored if you did something,’ George finally snapped back. He was becoming a little fed up with Richard's whinging.

  ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ Richard asked petulantly. ‘Digging up mulga roots? Building woodsheds?’ The cough that followed was deep and rasping and, although George knew it was a bid for sympathy, he was concerned. The Australian climate had had little effect on Richard's lungs.

  ‘Father was right,’ he said sharply. ‘Give up the cigars.’

  ‘You get more like him every day,’ Richard answered. ‘You're turning into a tyrant, George.’ But he smiled as he sipped his port and puffed his Havana and, as usual, it was impossible for George to take offence.

  ‘I know what you can do, Dickie,’ George said one night as they sat on the verandah in the gathering dusk watching Thomas cart wood up from the shed.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Richard answered warily. ‘And what is that?’

  Thomas went through the side door into the kitchen where they could hear him talking with Emma. Thomas and Emma were a middle-aged ticket-of-leave couple George had hired several months earlier and they were proving invaluable. Most of the Colony's domestic labour was employed from the ranks of convicts granted a ticket-of-leave, the conditions of which allowed them to serve their sentence under parole conditions but forbade them ever to return to England.

  ‘Study. That's what you can do,’ George continued. Richard stared blankly
at him and sipped his wine in silence. George rose, walked to the verandah rail and spread his arms expansively. ‘Look at that. Isn't it magnificent? And it's ours, Dickie. All ours.’

  The view was certainly impressive. The long straight drive up the hill to the homestead, the massive stone barn to the right and, to the left, the stables above which were the servants’ quarters. But Richard knew that George was referring to the land. The acres and acres of land which had been painstakingly cleared. Richard didn't think it looked magnificent at all. He thought it looked embarrassingly denuded and he vastly preferred the green trees and grasses that had been there before. But of course one had to clear the land and plant one's crops to survive, so he nodded dutifully.

  ‘Yes, George, it's magnificent. You've done a fine job. So what exactly do I study?’ he asked, feigning interest and hoping Emma would soon announce dinner. He was starving.

  ‘Crops,’ George answered. ‘Wheat, I presume -that's what most of the locals seem to favour. The land will be ready for planting soon and we need to know the correct time, the correct depth, the correct — ’

  ‘Good God, how am I supposed to go about that?’

  ‘The locals, Dickie. Charm the locals and learn their methods.’

  ‘Oh.’ Richard was suddenly interested. Here was a valid excuse to get away from the homestead and into town. ‘Very well. I shall start my inquiries tomorrow.’