The River Charm Read online

  About the Book

  A river pebble charm has an astonishing true story to tell, of one family’s survival in harsh colonial Australia . . . When artistic Millie visits a long-lost aunt, she learns about her family’s tragic past. Could the ghost girl Millie has painted be her own ancestor?

  In 1839, Charlotte Atkinson lives at Oldbury, a grand estate in the bush, with her Mamma and her sisters and brother. But after her father dies, things go terribly wrong – murderous convicts, marauding bushrangers and, worst of all, a cruel new stepfather.

  Frightened for their lives, the family flees on horseback to a hut in the wilderness. The Atkinson family must fight to save their property, their independence and even their right to stay together. Will they ever return to their beautiful home?

  Based on the incredible true-life battles of bestselling author Belinda Murrell’s own ancestors, the Atkinsons of Oldbury

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Deadication

  Epigraph

  Prologue: The Dream Girl

  Lost

  The House

  Master Maugie

  The Missing Silverware

  Mr Barton

  The Sheep Wash

  The Chief Constable

  Stealing the Furniture

  Decision

  Flight

  A Perilous Journey

  Light in the Darkness

  Swanton

  Sanctuary

  Dance of Death

  Letters

  Croup

  Mount Gingenbullen

  The Fishing Village

  Unwelcome Visitor

  Examinations

  The Verdict

  Kitty’s Ball

  William Cummings

  The Question

  The She-Dragon

  Return to Oldbury

  Afterwards

  Fast Facts about Australia in the 1840s

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  ALSO BY BELINDA MURRELL

  Copyright Notice

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  To my family, who remind me where I came from, and where I am going – especially my daughter Emily Charlotte, my sister Kate, my grandmother Nonnie and my mother Gilly. Never underestimate the power of a mother’s love.

  ‘The Light from the Mountain’by Louisa Atkinson, 1850s

  Oh! The light from the mountain is fading away And the shadows creep over it chilly and grey,I see the dark rocks in their sternness and pride,But the flowers are hidden that grow by their side.

  The tall trees are tossing their wild arms on high,As the shriek of the curlew goes mournfully by,The cold night is coming it will not delay,for the light of the mountain is fading away.The light from the mountain is fading away.

  Oh! The light from Life’s mountain is fading away The shadows are closing o’er Earth’s summer day!The cold mists have gathered on heart and on brow,The green leaves of friendship are lost to me now,up the steep rugged path I must wander alone.For the blossoms of Love and Beauty are gone:Death’s chill night is welcome why should it delay,When the light from Life’s mountain has faded away.

  Prologue The Dream Girl

  Millie wasn’t sure if she was asleep or awake, but there seemed to be a strangely shimmering girl standing at the end of her bed. The girl hovered there, in an old-fashioned white dress – high-necked, long-sleeved and flowing to her ankles. Her long, dark hair tumbled around her pale, pale face.

  ‘Wh . . . who are you?’ asked Millie, her mouth dry, her heart thumping. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The girl stared at her, quiet and mysterious, her dark eyes shining in the dim moonlight. Behind her, Millie thought she could see a shadowy forest of grey-green gum trees and silvery bark. A glimmering river flowed behind her.

  ‘Are you a ghost or a dream?’ wondered Millie out loud, hugging herself against the pillows.

  The girl beckoned to Millie, as though asking her to follow her into that secret forest. Millie shrank back, shaking her head, her stomach clenched in fear. The girl smiled a little enigmatic smile and offered her a bunch of creamy-white flannel flowers. Millie reached out to take them but the vision slowly faded away.

  Millie shook herself and rolled over. There was no ghost girl. No forest. No flannel flowers. It was simply a dream.

  When she awoke later that morning, she remembered the girl in her strange dream. The memory was a little unsettling. The image haunted her all day.

  Later in art class, when she was staring at a blank page wondering what she could possibly paint for her major project, it was the ghost girl’s face that came to her, pale and shimmery against the mottled-green shadows of a dark forest.

  Millie smiled and began to sketch, concentrating to remember the fleeting features of the girl’s face. At the end of class, the art teacher, Mrs Boardman, stopped behind Millie’s chair to check on her progress. She nodded with approval.

  ‘Millie, that is coming along beautifully,’ said Mrs Boardman. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing how that looks when you begin to paint it. What are those flowers? Daisies?’

  ‘I thought so at first, but I think they’re flannel flowers,’ replied Millie.

  ‘Excellent – and have you thought of a title for it yet?’ asked Mrs Boardman.

  Millie gave a little shiver.

  ‘I think it’s called . . . The Dream Girl.’

  1

  Lost

  ‘Ouch,’ cried Millie as her head jolted against the door.

  ‘Sorry,’ said her mum with a wince, clinging to the steering wheel with white knuckles. ‘This road is terrible.’

  The car bounced through another pothole on the narrow dirt road. On either side, dense scrub pressed up against the car, blocking their view. Thirteen-year-old Millie sat in the front, while her younger sister, Bella, was in the back surrounded by luggage.

  ‘Do you think this is the right road?’ asked Bella, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen. ‘I hope we haven’t taken another wrong turn. We could be lost out here for hours – days even.’

  Millie glanced up at the sky – heavy with grey rain clouds – then out at a sea of parched brown Scotch thistles, taller than a man, stretching to their left. It felt as though they were in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘No, the sign definitely said Oldbury Road,’ Mum assured them. ‘We should be there any . . . minute.’

  The thick scrub gave way to a hedge of prickly bare hawthorn, denuded by winter frosts. Suddenly there was a view to the right, through the lichen-spotted branches. A deep brown waterhole, fringed with reeds, then a green paddock where black Angus cattle grazed.

  ‘There it is,’ cried Mum. ‘That’s the old house.’

  The girls craned to see. Mum stopped the car. Through a gap in the hedge they could see in the distance a large house of golden sandstone, partially hidden by a thick copse of evergreens. It looked like a house out of a fairy­tale, a house protected by thorns and hedges, like a Sleeping Beauty castle.

  ‘It looks a bit scary,’ said the usually irrepressible Bella. ‘It looks so . . . lonely.’

  ‘It’s not scary,’ scolded Mum. ‘It’s just old – nearly one hundred and eighty years old.’

  Mum accelerated again and the view was swallowed by hedges. The car followed a wide curve, then they had to stop again. The road, flooded with muddy water, disappeared into a rivulet. Flood debris hung from a nearby barbed wire fence and from tree branches and scrubby
hawthorn.

  ‘It looks deep,’ said Mum nervously, surveying the flood.

  The girls took this as an invitation to scramble out of their seats and onto the road. The cold air hit Millie like a slap. It seeped into her bones.

  ‘Brrr,’ she said, digging her hands into her jacket. ‘It’s freezing.’

  ‘Come on,’ said eleven-year-old Bella, running towards the water.

  The water rushed past, swirling in brown eddies and hiding its true depth. Millie picked up a fallen branch and poked the water. Mum followed, frowning at the wide expanse covering the road.

  A massive English elm had fallen beside the road. One of its branches formed a makeshift bridge, tangled with blackberry brambles. Bella balanced like a tightrope walker across it, her arms out straight to the side.

  ‘Bella, don’t go out there,’ called Mum. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mum,’ insisted Bella, balancing on one leg and wobbling a little. Millie followed tentatively, using her branch as a walking stick to give her balance.

  ‘I can’t see how deep the water is,’ complained Mum. ‘I don’t know if there’s a deep hole in the middle or if it’s shallow all the way across.’

  Millie probed with her branch. From the middle of the tree-bridge, the view to the bottom was clearer.

  ‘I don’t think it’s very deep,’ Bella assured her mother. ‘I think we can make it.’

  Millie held up her branch, displaying the wet stain on the bark that reached about thirty centimetres up the branch.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘It doesn’t seem to get deeper than this.’

  Her mother sighed, squinting down at the murky depths.

  ‘Well, I don’t feel like driving all the way home to Sydney,’ she confessed. ‘So I guess we’ll have to try it.’

  Everyone clambered back into the car, their shoes caked with thick brown mud. Mum started the car and took a deep breath before accelerating towards the creek.

  The engine revved. Millie chewed her nails, the sides of her fingers already red and raw.

  Mum’s hands clenched the steering wheel. The car sputtered and stuttered but eventually chugged across and up the other bank, a sheet of water surging up on either side.

  ‘We made it!’ screeched Bella.

  Millie collapsed back against the seat.

  On the other side of the rivulet, the scrub petered out, replaced by tall elm trees, their branches bare against the winter sky. The hedge opened up to reveal paddocks, a driveway and then a clearer view of the golden house: Oldbury. It was a grand Georgian house, built of warm sandstone with a grey slate roof, its mullioned windows reflecting a glimmer of unexpected sun.

  ‘There it is,’ announced Mum with a relieved smile. ‘Oldbury. Built by your great-great-great-great-great grandparents, James and Charlotte Atkinson.’

  ‘Five times great,’ confirmed Bella, jiggling up and down on the back seat.

  The sight of the old house made Millie’s stomach flip. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she sighed. ‘And mysterious.’

  A heavy wrought-iron gate barred the driveway, fastened with a rusty bolt and a heavy iron padlock.

  ‘The owners are away overseas,’ explained Mum. ‘But Aunt Jessamine is renting one of the old farm cottages nearby and has been asked to keep an eye on the place. She said she’d take us inside for a look.’

  Mum checked a piece of paper with directions on the console. ‘We keep driving up this road and the cottage is on the right – an old stone cottage called Swanton.’

  Eventually they found the right place, after driving past the narrow driveway. Two golden labradors barked a loud welcome as Mum pulled in and parked the car.

  The green front door was flung open, revealing a woman who seemed about eighty years old, her grey hair cropped short and her face crinkled into a welcoming smile. She wore comfortable slacks and a green jumper, with a heavy gold charm bracelet on her wrist.

  ‘Come in. Come in,’ she called. ‘I thought you had forgotten.’ The dogs galloped up to her and licked her hands. The charm bracelet jingled as she patted the dogs.

  ‘Sorry we’re late, Aunt Jessamine,’ replied Mum, giving her a hug. ‘We managed to get a little lost on the way, then the river was flooded and we missed the driveway twice – but we’re here now. It was so lovely of you to invite us.’

  It was school holidays and Aunt Jessamine, a long-lost relative, had written to Mum in Sydney and asked her if she wanted to bring the girls down to stay for a weekend in the Southern Highlands. Both Bella and Millie had been reluctant. Bella had been hoping to go to a friend’s place for a sleepover, and Millie had been planning on spending a couple of days in her pyjamas, curled up in bed reading a book or perhaps drawing and painting. But Mum had been insistent.

  ‘Poor Aunt Jessamine is all alone in the world now,’ Mum reminded them. ‘She has no children or grand­children, and she’s probably very lonely. Besides, it will be lovely to get away for a couple of days – we can go for long walks and eat scones and spend time together. We hardly have any time together now that you’re both so busy with school and activities.’

  So Mum had taken a long weekend from work, and they had packed up the car with pillows, backpacks, a bag of books and an esky of snacks and made the two-hour drive south, through the old historic towns of Mittagong and Berrima to the farmland around Sutton Forest. Mum had been working off a map roughly hand-drawn by Aunt Jessamine and sadly lacking in detail and scale, and the satellite navigation system in the car had seemed a bit contrary today and had decided to take them a long, roundabout and thoroughly confusing route.

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Aunt Jessamine. ‘I have the kettle ready to boil and I’ve baked some apple tarts for morning tea. And these must be your beautiful daughters? Millie and Isabella – I’ve heard so much about you from your grandmother.’

  ‘Hello, Aunt Jessamine,’ echoed the two sisters, one shyly, the other boldly.

  Mum had explained that Jessamine was more like a second cousin than their aunt. She had never had children of her own and since her husband had died, she had endeavoured to regain contact with her more far-flung relatives.

  ‘Well, let’s not just stand here,’ insisted Aunt Jessamine. ‘Bring your things inside.’

  Aunt Jessamine had prepared a guestroom, with a view over the gardens towards Mount Gingenbullen. Bella and Millie were to share the double bed, while Mum had a day lounge against the window. They quickly dumped their bags, unpacked a few things then returned to the kitchen to join Aunt Jessamine.

  The kitchen was filled with the delicious smell of hot pastry. A table covered in a white cloth held a platter of freshly baked apple tarts, a bowl of thick clotted cream and a steaming teapot. The girls sat down beside their mother and sipped on the hot tea, which warmed their cold hands.

  ‘I believe Millie has inherited the family talent for art?’ asked Aunt Jessamine, sitting at the head of the table.

  Millie blushed and quickly examined the apple tart on her plate. The pastry was warm and flaky, while the moist apples were sticky with caramelised brown sugar. Millie took a forkful of tart so that she didn’t need to answer. It was delicious.

  Mum beamed with pride. ‘Millie came top of her year with a painting she called The Dream Girl. Her art teacher entered it into the local art competition, and she has been announced as a finalist,’ she boasted. ‘Millie has to go to the announcement of the winners in the city next weekend.’

  Millie’s stomach churned with fear. She was absolutely dreading it. Mrs Boardman, her art teacher, had explained that there would be a huge cocktail party with hundreds of people at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, including TV cameras and media photographers, as well as a who’s who of dignitaries, politicians and local celebrities. Then the mayor would announce the winners of each category. Millie was seriously considering c
oming down with a bad case of stomach bug so she could stay at home in bed and read a book.

  ‘Look, I have a photo of it here,’ offered Mum, rummaging around in her handbag.

  She pulled out her notebook computer and opened the photo of Millie’s painting, which filled the screen. It was a figure of a dark-haired girl, her pale skin in stark contrast to the shadowy silvery-greens of the forest behind. In a corner perched the almost invisible outline of a dragonfly, while a creamy profusion of flannel flowers sat in the foreground.

  ‘I think the girl looks kind of spooky,’ said Bella, wrinkling her nose. ‘She looks scared.’

  ‘No,’ Mum contradicted, smiling at Bella. ‘She looks ethereal.’

  Aunt Jessamine turned the screen towards her and examined it closely, then glanced sharply at Millie.

  ‘It’s very good,’ she said. ‘Exceptional for a child of your age.’

  ‘Oh, not really,’ mumbled Millie, scuffing her toe on the wooden floor under the table. ‘I don’t know why they entered it in the competition. I wish they hadn’t.’

  Aunt Jessamine lifted Millie’s chin with her forefinger and gazed into her eyes. Her heavy gold charm bracelet jingled. ‘Millie, did you know that the lineage of talented female artists and writers in our family goes back nearly two hundred years? It’s a heritage you should be proud of.’

  Millie frowned. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she replied.

  ‘Oldbury, the house we are going to see later today, was built by your ancestors James and Charlotte,’ explained Aunt Jessamine. ‘Charlotte Waring, as she was before she married James, studied art and drawing under John Glover, the famous English landscape painter.

  ‘She then taught her own four children – Charlotte Elizabeth, Jane Emily, James John and Caroline Louisa – and they all went on to become talented painters and writers. I have a book here that has reproductions of some of their paintings and sketches. Sadly, though, most of their work was destroyed in the late nineteenth century.’

  In the car on the journey down from Sydney, Mum had explained that Aunt Jessamine was fascinated with the family history.