The Night They Stormed Eureka Read Online Free Page B

tails,’ she added to Sam, ‘but only to give flavour to the mutton like. Ain’t no point the whole diggings knowing what goes into my pots, is there?’
    Sam was silent. The men obviously knew the Puddlehams. Maybe the bushranger knew about them too? Knew they’d be coming this way. Knew that they’d be carrying gold.
    And who was Lucy?
    This world was suddenly as complex as the one she’d left. Maybe the past only seemed simple, she thought suddenly, because all you knew of it was what was written on the page. But what about the bits you didn’t know? That no one had written about?
    The three of them stopped to drink from a stream, a thin trickle among ferny banks, then Mrs Puddleham and Samwent behind the trees to go to the toilet. It was easy for Mrs Puddleham, thought Sam — she just had to crouch down and her skirts hid what was going on. Sam had to pull her jeans around her ankles and leave her bum bare, which made her blush, even though the only onlookers were a pair of magpies. Almost the only onlookers. She fastened her jeans to find Mrs Puddleham watching her.
    ‘You best make sure you use a chamber pot in the tent when we get back to the diggings.’
    She gazed at Sam’s shirt, then shook her head. ‘And I think you need this too, deary.’ The big woman lifted the hem of her petticoat. There was a tearing sound, then she pressed a long length of grubby ruffle into Sam’s hand.
    Sam looked at it, bewildered. ‘What should I do with this?’
    ‘Tie it round there,’ Mrs Puddleham indicated Sam’s breasts under her shirt. ‘To keep yourself flat like. Not that there’s much to show yet, but some men have sharper eyes than others, if you get my meaning. You’ll be growing bigger soon enough too,’ she added complacently, ‘with my good cooking in you. And it’s not like it’s for long. When we have our hotel in Melbourne we’ll have you in pink silk and lace. Pink’s me favourite colour,’ she added. ‘But it don’t go with me red cheeks, and that’s a fact. But it’d look a picture on you, deary.’
    Yuck, thought Sam. She took off her shirt. Mrs Puddleham looked curiously at Sam’s bra as she began to wrap the cloth firmly around herself, but she made no comment. Perhaps, hoped Sam, Mrs Puddleham thought the bra was just another way to hide her breasts.
    ‘Mrs Puddleham …’
    ‘Best to call me Ma,’ said Mrs Puddleham.
    ‘Ma … ‘ It was embarrassing seeing the pleasure suddenly flow into Mrs Puddleham’s eyes. ‘Why did you come to …’
    Help! she thought. Was Australia still called New Holland? She couldn’t even ask what year it was, or what goldfield they were near, in case they thought that she was crazy. She compromised with ‘. why did you come here? If Mr Puddleham had such a good job with Queen Victoria, I mean.’
    Mrs Puddleham snorted. ‘What’s a life of bowing and scraping, even if it’s to a queen, against a hotel o’ your own, with velvet chairs? Slept ten in a room, them butlers did, even at the palace, and no time to yourself even on Christmas Day.’
    ‘Did you work at the palace too?’
    ‘I was Her Majesty’s cook —’ Mrs Puddleham stopped. She stared at Sam for a moment. The flush crept up her cheeks again.
    ‘Nay,’ she said at last. ‘You’ve a right to the truth. I don’t want to lie to you, deary. Never to you. Ma died o’ the gin and the cold. I was ten when they sent me from the workhouse to the palace. That were afore Her Majesty were queen, o’ course. Worked me way up from tweenie to kitchen maid. But a girl don’t get to be more’n kitchen maid in a palace, no matter how good her teacakes are — an’ I had more good cooking in my little finger than six of those men chefs put together.
Monsewers,
they calledthem, except for one who was a
sahib
what made the curries. Couldn’t make a Dundee cake between the lot o’ them.’
    Sam frowned. ‘So that’s why you came here? To open your cook shop on the