The pool of St Branok

"Yes, I did," said Lizzie delightedly. "And Ben said you must come, too, didn't you, Ben?"

I was taken to the room I was to occupy. How different from the shanty! No, I could not have let my baby be born there.

Mrs. Bowles bustled round in profound appreciation for her own efficiency. In due course Dr. Field arrived.

It was a simple and uncomplicated birth and I experienced a thrill of joy when they laid my little girl in my arms.

I said that what I had wanted more than anything was a little girl.

"It is so nice," said Morwenna, "because Pedrek is a boy. Perhaps when they grow up they'll marry."

"I insist that you allow my child time to get out of her cradle before you plunge her into matrimony," I said.

We talked of names.

Morwenna wanted her to be called Bennath which was Cornish, she told me, for "blessing."

"And that," she said, "is what this child is going to be for you, Angelet."

Bennath ... I thought: People will call her Ben or Bennie. I could not have that. It would remind me of him.

What I wanted to do was take my child away and forget this place ... and all that had happened in it.

I would go home where perhaps it would be possible to start afresh.

I finally decided on Annora Rebecca—Annora after my mother and Rebecca because I liked it. "But we shall call her Rebecca," I said, "because it is always awkward to call two in one family by the same name."

So Rebecca she became.

She flourished. I stayed on at Golden Hall. I said it was for the baby's sake; but I wanted to be there, too.

I could not face going back to the shack.

Mrs. Bowles stayed with me and taught me all the things one has to learn about babies. And I found myself happier than I had been for a long time.

I wrote to my parents and told them about Rebecca and that I should be with them as soon as my baby was old enough to travel. I had written in detail of Gervaise's death and I had had letters from them urging me to come home as soon as possible.

We were ready to leave. Justin had been to Melbourne to book our passages on the Southern Cross and all being well we should arrive in England in about three months' time.

It would be spring there and here the winter would be starting. Winter in the township was hard to bear; although the heat of the summer could perhaps be equally trying. I noticed the envious looks which were cast in my direction. We were the lucky ones even if we had not found gold. We were going home.

I was in the shack one day packing up the last of my things when Ben came in. In two days we were to take the Cobb's coach to Melbourne.

He shut the door and stood against it looking at me.

"So soon," he said, "you will be gone. Oh, Angel, what a mess we have made of everything."

"What? You ... the envy not only of Golden Creek but the whole of Australia!"

"It wasn't the way I wanted it to be."

"It was the way you made it be."

"It is going to be very dull here when you have gone."

I tried to laugh and said: "I have hardly been the life and soul of the party."

"You know what you have been to me."

"I remember what you have told me ... in the past," I replied.

"I shall always love you, Angel. Everything was against us. When I was free you were not ... and now ... Who would have thought ... ?"

I wanted to be flippant. I felt I had to be before I broke down and betrayed my true feelings. That, above all, I must not do. "Are you implying," I said, "that Gervaise might have timed his exit more conveniently to suit you?"

He looked aghast.

I went on: "Perhaps you should be grateful. Just suppose I had listened to you. Suppose I had left with you as you suggested ... I should still be a woman without a husband and you a man without a gold mine."

"You were more important to me than the mine."

"Remember your vow. You weren't coming back until you found gold ... a lot of it. Well, now you have."

"I shall come back," he said. "Soon."

"Not while the mine yields up such rewards, Ben."

He came towards me but I held back.

"No, it is over," I said. "Over? Well, it never was, was it?"

"I should never have come to this place. I should have come back to Cador. I should never have left Cador. I should have insisted on staying with you."

"It is all in the past, Ben. I shall leave here and everything will seem different when I get home. I have my child. I shall begin a new life. This is over ... finished ... It is going to be as though it never was."

"You won't forget. You did care for me."

I said: "I shall try to forget, and if I ever do look back and feel the slightest bit sad, I shall say to myself: He married Lizzie. He married her because he knew there was a gold mine on her father's land and that was the only way he could get his hands on it."

"It is not a flattering picture, is it, Angel?"

"Oh ... I'm not judging. It has made Lizzie happy. It has given you what you want. Lizzie's father died contented because of it. I suppose there is good in everything. I have my child now. You have your mine. You see, we both have a great deal to be thankful for."