Shadows in the Valley Read online

  CONTENT

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgement

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  South Australia, 1866. Beautiful but destitute Abigail is forced to marry an old landowner who desperately needs heirs. But on their wedding night something terrible happens …

  Abbey flees Martindale Hall. She has no memory of the previous night, but no one believes her. With no one to trust, she seeks refuge in the neighbouring town of Clare. There, her luck seems to change. She meets Jack Hawker, who is looking for someone to tend to his mother on the remote farm Bungaree Station. Jack hires Abbey for the job. But Abbey's respite is short-lived. Days later, a visitor from Martindale Hall turns up on the farm, accusing Abbey of the inexcusable … Will Jack believe her? Or is she doomed to a life of penance?

  With an eye for detail, Elizabeth Haran is the author of numerous other romantic adventures including Island of Whispering Winds, Under a Flaming Sky, Flight of the Jabiru, and River of Fortune, Staircase to the Moon, and Beyond the Red Horizon, all available as eBooks.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Elizabeth Haran was born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia and migrated to Australia as a child. She lives with her family in Adelaide and has written fourteen novels set in Australia. Her heart-warming and carefully crafted books have been published in ten countries and are bestsellers in Germany.

  Readers can connect with Elizabeth Haran on various social media platforms:

  Twitter: @elizabethharan

  Facebook: aussieoutbackauthor

  Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Haran

  ELIZABETH HARAN

  SHADOWS IN THE VALLEY

  »be« by BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

  Digital original edition

  »be« by Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is written in British English.

  Copyright © 2007 Elizabeth Haran, © 2018 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

  Written by Elizabeth Haran

  Edited by Amanda Wright

  Project management: Lori Herber

  Cover design: Manuela Städele-Monverde

  Cover illustration © Richard Jenkins | © shutterstock: totajla | structuresxx | kwest

  E-book production: Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde

  ISBN 978-3-7325-4615-2

  www.be-ebooks.com

  Twitter: @be_ebooks_com

  DEDICATION

  I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of the late Edda Merz. I am truly honoured to know I was her favourite author.

  CHAPTER 1

  Burra – South Australia

  November – 1866

  From Blyth Street, the three miles of parched earth that snaked through Burra township looked like any other dried up creek bed, cracking to pieces under severe drought. But upon closer inspection, smoke could be seen drifting from holes in the tops of the banks. The holes served as chimneys for hundreds of “dugouts,” carved into the sides of the creek bed. Nearly two thousand people lived in the dusty dwellings. Brought here to work in the Monster Mine, families had hoped to make their fortunes in Burra, one hundred miles from Adelaide in South Australia’s Gilbert Valley.

  The sun was setting on a hot November day. For months the creek—now called Creek Street—had been nothing more than a basin for dust and scraggly weeds. Unfortunately, without the whisper of a breeze, the lingering stench of human waste and garbage was suffocating.

  As evening approached, the women in the dugouts began preparing their simple dinners, but in the back of their minds, they held a sense of apprehension that had settled with the dust over Creek Street. Suddenly, an eerie, heart-rending cry of anguish broke the tense silence, and everyone became still for a moment. Then the wailing began.

  Two tears slid down Abbey Scottsdale’s sun-kissed cheeks as she got up from the dirt floor of the two-roomed dugout she shared with her father. She stepped outside. Many others nearby had emerged from their dugouts. In the fading light her neighbours resembled a forest of trees in a narrow valleysentinels, silent and still.

  They knew what the cries of anguish meant, because they weren’t unexpected. Little Ely Dugan had lost his battle with typhoid. A small and frail four-year-old, he’d had almost no hope of surviving, despite the hundreds of prayers said for him. His mother’s agonised cries wrenched at the hearts of those gathered outside the family dugout.

  Abbey was eighteen, and not yet a wife or mother, but she felt for Evelyn Dugan, who had already lost a son the past year. In that time, almost thirty children had died of typhus, smallpox, and typhoid fever on Creek Street. And every time a child died on Creek Street, it reminded Abbey of what she had lost personally. She’d been born in Ireland in 1848. Little more than a year later, her brother Liam had arrived, and then her sister Eileen was born eighteen months later. When Abbey was five, Liam had died from smallpox. A year later, Eileen was dead after a severe bout of whooping cough. And, in 1860, her mother Mary, at only twenty-nine years of age, had died from diphtheria.

  Disease was rampant in the unsanitary conditions of the creek. But with nowhere else to go, the miners were forced to live in mud dugouts shored up with timber beams. The cave-like dwellings were cool in the summer, but were damp, muddy, and bitterly cold in the winter when the inhabitants were often driven out by the rising creek water.

  Brushing her tears from her cheeks, Abbey went back into her dugout. She tied up her long black hair and went to stir the pot of smoked bacon bone soup she’d made for the evening meal. She didn’t know why she’d been spared typhoid and other diseases, and she also didn’t know why someone as young and innocent as Ely had not.

  Abbey was waiting for her father to come home from the Miner’s Arms Hotel. He always went to the pub on Thursday evenings, as it was payday, and he also went there most Saturday afternoons, drinking with his friends, men who had also left Ireland to find work. She resented him for not coming straight home from work on Saturdays, but on Thursdays, it gave her an hour alone with Neal Tavis. She couldn’t see Neal on Saturdays because he spent the day working on a local farm for extra money.

  Neal was the young man Abbey had fallen in love with. He was eighteen-years old and worked alongside her father, 180 yards below ground in the copper mine. After work on Thursdays, Neal hurried home to wash before coming to see Abbey, so as to avoid her dad. Finlay Scottsdale could be volatile and unpredictable when drunk, and he had made his opinion about Neal very clear. He didn’t want his daughter to marry someone
without prospects, and he considered a miner who lived in a dugout to be unsuitable. He wanted better for Abbey than what he himself had been able to give her. Neal hoped Finlay would change his mind if he could buy a piece of land and prove he was worthy. He saved every penny he could, but it was hard because he was a young man burdened with responsibilities, something Finlay was very aware of. Neal supported his mother, Meg, and two school-age sisters, twins Emily and Amy. They lived nearly a mile down Creek Street from the Scottsdales, on the opposite side.

  An hour passed, and then a familiar whistle broke the sombre quiet that had befallen the camp as Finlay approached the dugout, inebriated and unaware of what had happened. Abbey listened intently to her father’s whistling, as it was often an indication of just how much he’d had to drink, and, consequently, the mood he would be in. After two or three pints, Finlay was optimistic about bettering their lives, but it was rare that he stopped at just two or three pints. After four or five pints, he could become melancholy or patriotic. When he’d had even more more to drink, he became pessimistic and morose. Abbey hated to see her father that way, but she’d come to realise there was no changing him. Instead, she tried to accept her father for who he was, but also looked forward to her future with Neal.

  Finlay was in a good mood for a change, Abbey noted. He was whistling “Brian Boru’s March.” When he was really drunk, he whistled “The Lamentation of Deirdre.” It had been a favourite of her mother’s before she died. Abbey dreaded hearing it because it meant her father’s depression was soon to follow.

  “Abigail, my angel,” Finlay said cheerfully, as he ducked his head to enter the dugout. “What fine feast have you prepared for us this night?”

  Abbey barely glanced up from the floor, where she was sitting. “Little Ely just passed away, Father, could you please keep your voice down?” she said.

  Finlay looked momentarily emotional. “That’s terrible news,” he muttered. “He was a fine little lad.”

  “Yes, he was,” Abbey said sadly, remembering his impish grin and curly red hair. She’d always called him a little leprechaun. It upset her that her memories of her own brother and sister had faded, but she would never forget her mother’s endless tears over their loss.

  Abbey sniffed, fighting her own unstable emotions. “Did you not hear Evelyn Dugan’s cries as you went by her dugout?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Finlay said. He bent to sit down, stumbled, and fell heavily to the ground. Sitting up, he groaned, and then chuckled as he kicked ashes from the fire.

  Abbey had seen him in this state numerous times, so she wasn’t alarmed. She clicked her tongue, a habit her mother had employed whenever she was cross with Finlay. For that, Finlay forgave her, as Abbey often admonished him like a wife, which he found strangely comforting.

  “Abbey, we’ve something to celebrate,” Finlay said, smiling delightedly.

  “What’s that, Father?” she asked flatly as she ladled soup into a bowl for him and tore off a piece of the bread she’d cooked. Some good news would make for a very welcome change.

  “You and I have been invited to dine at Martindale Hall this Saturday evening,” Finlay replied excitedly.

  Abbey looked across the fire at her father, a frown marring her pretty features. “Why have we been invited to the Hall?” She was perfectly aware of the mine owner’s contemptuous regard for his workers, so she was puzzled why he would invite her and her father to his home in Mintaro. It was described by those few who had seen it as palatial and ostentatious. She was even more puzzled about why her father would accept such an invitation, as Ebenezer Mason was a man with a reputation for looking down on the lower classes and exploiting them whenever he could.

  Finlay didn’t answer immediately as he thought carefully about his next words. “I told you, we’ve been invited to dine,” he said. “And it’ll be on sumptuous fare, I’ll wager, maybe a roast leg of lamb with all the trimmings. That would be a real treat, hey, Abbey?” He licked his lips in anticipation. “I hope Ebenezer Mason has plenty of ale to go with it. I’m not one for fancy wines.”

  “I’m confused, Father. I thought you had a low opinion of Mr. Mason,” Abbey said suspiciously. Her father had often grumbled about him because he was known for putting profit ahead of the miners’ safety.

  “That I did, Abbey,” Finlay said thoughtfully.

  “And now?” Abbey asked, confused.

  “I’ve gotten to know the man in the last few weeks, Abbey, and I’m ashamed of how I’ve judged him.”

  “I thought you had good reason to dislike him.”

  “I thought I did,” Finlay said, sounding tired. He began spooning soup into his mouth noisily.

  Abbey winced at the image of him doing that in the elegant dining room of Martindale Hall.

  “We have to start thinking about your future, Abbey,” Finlay said abruptly.

  “My future? What has that got to do with dining at the Hall?” She flushed when she realised what her father might be up to. He often hinted about prospective husbands, men he thought suitable, like the mayor’s son or the manager of the Royal Exchange Hotel. He’d even tried to set her up with the chief constable, a man in his late thirties. Abbey was terribly embarrassed, as she believed these men were either too old or above her in station. Surely, he wasn’t thinking that Mr. Mason’s son would be interested in her? But then she remembered hearing that his son didn’t live at the Hall. She’d heard rumours that he lived in a cottage somewhere on the vast estate, and that he rarely spoke to his father after a falling-out over his father’s brief marriage to a young woman. But no one really knew the truth behind the estrangement. Friends had pointed out his carriage on the rare occasion it passed through Burra, but he didn’t socialise in the town, so Abbey had never actually seen him.

  “Mr. Mason has suggested he’d like to get to know you, Abbey,” Finlay said, noting that Abbey looked displeased with the prospect and a little bewildered. He’d always been frustrated with his daughter’s lack of ambition when it came to choosing a potential husband who could give her a good life, one she deserved.

  Finlay was, of course, biased, but he believed any man would be lucky to marry such a beautiful young woman. Not that any man would do. On the contrary. Abbey was a little thin, as her mother had been, but her long, dark hair glistened like coal in the sun, and her eyes were surely as blue as the sea.

  “I think Mr. Mason has his eye on you.” He knew it to be true, but wanted to break the idea gently to his naïve daughter.

  “What?” Abbey said, now clearly appalled. “Mr. Mason is old. He’s as old as you, isn’t he, Father?” The thought of anything romantic with Ebenezer Mason repulsed her. She couldn’t believe her father would consider someone so old an appropriate suitor.

  Old, to someone Abbey’s tender age, was over thirty. Ebenezer was fifty-three, only five years younger than her father, who also hadn’t married young. Finlay had been forty, and Mary had been seventeen when they were wed. In County Sligo, where Finlay’s family hailed from, it wasn’t unusual for men to marry women in their late teens, even though the men were sometimes well into their forties. But that habit was not as common in Australia.

  “He’s not as old as me, Abbey,” Finlay said indignantly. “Not quite,” he added softly. He momentarily flinched as a mental picture came to mind, but quickly pushed any qualms he had away. He was determined to concentrate on his daughter’s future security. “You might think him mature, Abbey, but he’s a very wealthy man. That means you could one day be a very wealthy widow.”

  “That is a terrible thing to say,” Abbey said crossly. “And I think you are certainly fooling yourself. Mr. Mason wouldn’t be interested in a girl from the dugouts.”

  “That’s where you are wrong, Abbey. It is not common knowledge, but he was once a miner, too,” Finlay said.

  Abbey’s eyes widened. Like everyone else, she had imagined that Eb
enezer Mason had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth in an aristocratic house in England.

  “That’s right. He was once penniless until he tried his hand at mining on the Victorian gold fields,” Finlay added, noting her surprise. “That’s how he made his fortune. He struck it rich in Peg Leg Gully in the early 1850s. Three hundred and twenty-four pounds of gold were eventually found there, a nice portion of it by Mr. Mason and his colleagues. Can you imagine that?” Finlay had told his friends in the pub this piece of information. They were astonished, but then the publican whispered that Mason had duped his two partners in the venture. Finlay had chosen to disregard it, certain it was only jealousy rearing its ugly head. “I respect a man who works hard for his money. If he was lucky enough to strike it rich, good for him, I say.”

  “How do you know this is true?” Abbey asked. It all sounded a bit questionable as far as she was concerned.

  “He told me himself. We’ve had quite a few frank discussions lately.” Finlay stared into the flames of the fire. He’d learned a lot about Mr. Mason over the past two weeks. It would be correct to say that he’d been suspicious at first about why the mine owner had wanted to have a drink with him, and had bluntly expressed his concerns, but Mr. Mason was candid about his motives, and Finlay respected that. It gave him a chance to be just as frank and to tell Mr. Mason that his daughter was a good girl, and unless his intentions were strictly honourable, there would be no association between them. After being assured this was the case, the two men set about getting to know each other, with Mr. Mason hoping they could come to some arrangement.

  “Really?” Abbey said, now even more suspicious about Mr. Mason’s sudden affinity towards her father. As for Mason once being a miner, it was hard to imagine him getting his hands dirty, especially when she thought about his snowy white shirts and shiny patent leather shoes. But if her father believed he’d been a miner, then she supposed it had to be true.

  “That’s right, Abbey, love,” Finlay said. “There’s a lot of responsibility and worry that comes with owning a mine. I’d never thought about it, but Mr. Mason has opened my eyes, and I now have a new appreciation for his position.”