hub of the Otago goldrush was still in its infancy. But whereas Sydney had a quiet, settled feel to it after eighty years of colonisation, Dunedin seemed to be teeming with energy.
Fed by the Otago goldfields, the richest since Ballarat and California, Dunedin’s prosperity was obvious. Spanning out from a small central park, called The Octagon, were streets of substantial buildings with ornate façades, between which were empty spaces and busy building sites. Over the lower reaches of the hills spread a canvas town of tents, hundreds of them, which Caro guessed belonged to either transient miners or people unable to find or afford accommodation. There was a vibrancy to the town, almost a sense of anticipation, which thrilled Caro to the bone.
A gust of icy wind blew along the quay, billowing the dresses of the women and loosening a few hats. The half-dozen ships tied up at the docks creaked as the gathering gale plucked at their furled sails and hummed along the ropes. Caro realised that she was growing cold. In fact, she could never recall being so cold in her life. Another new experience to savour!
Pulling the fur trim of her jacket collar up around her chin, she strode along the quay and up the road that lay straight ahead, quite unaware, as always, that she was turning heads as she passed. She had always been hard to overlook, being well above average height for a woman. What was more unusual was the way she bore herself, with a loose-limbed, graceful walk that in a man would have verged on being a swagger. Combined with classically blond beauty and a pair of sparkling eyes, Miss Morgan’s looks had always drawn admiring comment. Most remarkable, however, was that she had always remained blithely oblivious to the fact that her appearance was anything out of the ordinary.
She might as well get her bearings first, she thought, stepping up on to the narrow wooden footpath that ran below the shop awnings. There was only room for three people walking abreast, so she kept politely to the left, holding her bag close to her side so as not to bump into other walkers. Despite the foul weather the streets were busy, and she noted with interest the preponderance of Scottish accents she heard. She passed no fewer than two Churches of Scotland within five minutes’ walk and half the shop names began with ‘Mac’. It was true, then, the description she had heard on the ship of Dunedin being the Edinburgh of the South.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said to a man obstructing the footpath as he loaded up his dray. He looked rough, a miner perhaps, and he had a scowl on his face.
‘Get lost,’ he snarled, not looking up. She waited patiently. Her parents had always insisted on the utmost courtesy to everyone, no matter what their station in life, and she was not going to break that ingrained habit now. She could, of course, step down into the road and walk around the horse and dray, but the snow had turned to sleet, and the icy mud looked most uninviting.
‘Will you be long, sir?’ she enquired after a moment.
‘Long as I need to be.’ He slammed down a box with unnecessary force and turned to hoist up the next one. There were still two high piles of crates to load.
‘I see.’ Caro put down her bag. ‘What if I help you load? That will speed you up, won’t it?’
He turned around then with a curse, which died unspoken on his lips as he saw her wide green eyes, utterly devoid of malice or sarcasm. A slow flush rose over his face as he shuffled ponderously to one side to allow her to pass. He was staring at her in the way lots of men did whenever her parents had taken her into Sydney or Parramatta. She really wished they didn’t—one usually couldn’t get any sense out of them when they looked like that. However, this was New Zealand. Perhaps men were a little more sensible here. She gave him a smile and pulled out the envelope from her pocket.
‘Thank you, sir. I wonder if you could tell me where I would find Castle Street? Is it close by?’
He ignored the envelope—too late Caro realised he might not be able to read and that she might have inadvertently given offence—and waved his arm in the direction she had been heading.
‘Down there. Second on yer left.’
‘Thank you so much.’ She picked up her bag and went to move past him, but he had recovered by now enough to move to block her way.
‘Heavy bag for a young miss,’ he said ingratiatingly. ‘Like a hand with it?’
‘How kind. But you couldn’t leave all these boxes here.’ She looked down at him—he was at least two inches shorter—and added with a touch of asperity, ‘And your poor horses. They must be cold. You’ll want to get them moving, won’t you?’
She flashed him a smile and moved smartly away down the sidewalk before he could detain her any further. Already she could see the signpost for Castle Street, and her heart began to beat a little faster. She wasn’t sure what she would find, or what sort of reception she would get at the Castledene Hotel. Indeed, would Mrs Wilks still live there?
Charlotte Wilks. Aunt Charlotte. Her mother’s sister. Caro had never seen her, knew nothing of her except that there was some sort of scandal surrounding her aunt, and not of the common or garden danced-twice-in-a-row-with-the-same-man sort of scandal that would have had female tongues astir on the Hawkesbury. No, Aunt Charlotte’s sins were too dreadful to name, if her parents’ tense reactions to her occasional letters were anything to go by. Caro didn’t know if her mother had ever written back, but she did know that her father would have sternly disapproved. He always went rather…rigid, she thought, when one of Aunt Charlotte’s letters had arrived, or when Caro had mentioned her name, which she had made a point of often doing. Whatever Aunt Charlotte had done, Ben had never forgiven her, and he never would. He loathed her more than anyone else alive. Caro couldn’t wait to meet her.
She turned the corner into Castle Street and caught her breath in relief. Standing proudly at the end of a cul-de-sac, the Castledene Hotel was a magnificent, double-storeyed building, the finest Caro had seen so far in Dunedin. Her fears that she would find Aunt Charlotte starving in a cobwebby attic somewhere began to evaporate. The last letter from here to Caro’s mother had been posted only three months before, and if Aunt Charlotte could afford to board here, she must be reasonably in funds.
Caro gave a wide berth to the entrance to the public bar—although it was only mid-morning, there sounded as if there were already a number of noisy patrons inside—and pushed open one of the big front doors.
Very nice. She put her bag on the ground and looked around in approval. The entry was most imposing, if very cold, being paved and colonnaded in pale grey marble. Carved kauri staircases swept discreetly up on either side, almost obscured by rich velvet drapes. Immediately in front of her, panelled doors stood ajar, giving a glimpse of tables set with heavy damask and sparkling silver. It was as impressive as any of Sydney’s grand hotels, with only the underlying smell of recently sawn wood betraying its newness.
‘Can I help you, miss?’
Caro turned to the thin, neat-looking man behind the reception desk with a smile. ‘I hope so, sir. I’m looking for Mrs Wilks. Mrs Jonas Wilks. I understand she was a guest here some months ago. Is she still here?’
The man cleared his throat. ‘Indeed, miss.’ She was subjected to a politely swift scrutiny. ‘May I tell her who is calling?’
Caro hesitated. She had thought long and hard about this situation, and had decided that a little vagueness might initially be desirable. After all, what if Aunt Charlotte felt the same about Caro’s family as Caro’s father did about Aunt Charlotte?
‘I’m a relative,’ she said warmly. Then, as the clerk hesitated, she smiled encouragingly. ‘I know she’ll want to see me.’
He disappeared up one of the great staircases, his shoes noiseless on the thick carpet, and she sat down to wait on one of the elegant chairs placed between the aspidistras around the foyer. Despite her care, her walking shoes were covered with a light layer of wet mud, and she glared at them in irritation. They and a pair of boots were the only footwear she had now. At home, in her closet, stood rows of boots and shoes and slippers. And as for her dresses—she thought with regret of the wardrobe she had been forced to leave behind her. While it had seemed a good idea at the time to run away