Undercurrents

by Tamara McKinley

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas; Romance; Action & Adventure Romance; Clean & Wholesome Romance; 20th Century Romance; Western Romance

Synopsis

If you love Lesley Pearse, you're sure to fall for Tamara McKinley! 1894. The SS Arcadia sets sail from Liverpool, carrying Eva and Frederick Hamilton - a young married couple determined to make a new start in an exciting new frontier: Australia. But as the ship nears its destination, it goes down in an unexpected storm. Years later, Olivia Hamilton makes the same journey, hoping to learn more about her mysterious origins. As Olivia draws closer to discovering the truth about her past, she realises that, like Eva Hamilton all those years ago, this could be a journey with unexpected consequences.

Release date: August 29, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 406

Sample

The SS Arcadia had left Liverpool six weeks earlier. Now it was the tenth of March in the year 1894, and the storm came off the western shores of Australia with little warning.

The Captain fought to keep his ship bow on to the hurricane winds and titanic seas, but he was beginning to suspect it was a losing battle. He’d already watched, helplessly, as three of his crew were washed overboard as they attempted to repair a hatch cover, and now two of the three masts had been snapped off like matchsticks. The decks were leaking, the cargo scattered to kingdom come, but the funnels had held and the mighty engine still throbbed in the engine room. He knew his ship had seen other storms and survived them, just as he had done, and he refused to give in. There were 1,500 passengers in his care as well as his crew. It was his duty to bring them safely to land.

He peered through the rain–lashed window into the black night. This storm could have tossed them miles off course, and with no moon, no stars, it was impossible to fix their position. Riding the shifting, rolling deck beneath his feet, he took a firmer grip on the great wheel and began to pray. This coastline was littered with submerged islands of coral and pinnacles of rock. Even Arcadia’s steel hull couldn’t survive being battered against them.

In the first–class stateroom on the upper deck, Eva Hamilton clung to Frederick. It was dark. So black she couldn’t see his face or the gleam of her new wedding ring. Yet her fear was laced with excitement, a dreadful thrill that they were at the height of a great adventure. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

The great ship plunged with stomach–churning ferocity, lifted her bow and tossed them both from the bed to the floor. ‘This can’t go on,’ shouted Frederick above the banshee wail of the wind and the thunder of the ocean. ‘Three days we’ve been riding this storm. The hull won’t take it.’

‘She’s lasted this long,’ Eva yelled back as they again found one another in the darkness. ‘We have to keep faith in the Captain.’

He didn’t reply, merely tightened his grip around her waist.

Eva sat on the floor, her face pressed to his chest, her back hard against the oak panelling. The storm had begun as a darkening of the skies to the east. The Captain had assured the passengers all would be well, and that this was merely a routine hazard off these western shores. Yet, as the wind picked up and began to howl and the waves towered so high they blotted out the horizon, the passengers had sought refuge in their cabins – no longer exhilarated but terrified.

Her own fear was beginning to surface and she hastily turned her thoughts to more pleasant things as she attempted to remain rooted in one position. They were on their way to a new life in a new country. Frederick would take up his role as Her Majesty’s Land Surveyor and she would settle down to manage his home and take part in whatever society Melbourne had to offer.

Their first home would be gracious once the furniture was unpacked from the hold, and she’d daydreamed all through the long engagement of the time when she could hold soirees and tea parties with the ladies of that region. Her trousseau was carefully packed away in trunks, the dresses and tea gowns folded in linen to protect them from the sea air. What a swathe she and her handsome husband would cut amongst the colonials, for no doubt they were hopelessly out of touch with London fashion.

Her pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a fierce crash that seemed to shudder right through the ship. The Arcadia plunged, then lifted her bow, rising higher and higher until it seemed as if they were suspended from the sky itself.

Eva screamed as they were sent slithering up the wall and thudded against what she guessed was the ceiling. Crockery smashed all around them in the darkness. Furniture crashed and splintered and the chandelier shattered in a million pieces as it hit something hard. All excitement for the adventure was swept away in a moment of pure terror.

‘Freddy,’ she screamed as she clutched his lapels. ‘We’re going to sink!’

‘Hold on to me!’ he yelled in her ear. ‘Whatever happens, don’t let go.’

Eva didn’t need telling twice. Frederick was warm and solid and the only anchor she had. She wasn’t about to lose her hold on him.

The bow crashed back into the heaving sea and came to a shuddering standstill. A thousand–ton wave towered over the Arcadia, now helplessly caught in the jaws of the reef.

The captain looked up at it, knowing this was the end. His last thoughts were for the poor souls in steerage and the men in the engine room as the wave released its full force and fell with a giant hammer blow on the helpless ship and broke its back.

Eva screamed. Water was pouring in. The storm plucked at her with icy fingers, trying to rip her away from Frederick into the howling blackness beyond the cabin.

‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ Frederick yanked her to her feet. ‘We must stay together,’ he shouted above the wind. ‘Hold on tight and don’t let go.’

Eva grasped his hand. She was soaked through and chilled to the very bone for she was still in her dinner gown. She couldn’t see, and didn’t know which way they were going. She had to have faith in Frederick’s sense of direction.

The ship lurched and writhed, grinding ever further into the reef as they stumbled knee deep in water into the passageway. The wild night was full of terror. Passengers fought, clawing and trampling each other in the darkness to reach the boats. The screams mingled with those of the wind giving them a vision of hell.

Eva grabbed Frederick’s belt and hung on as he pushed and shoved and fought his way through the chaotic stampede. Her long skirts were hampering her, but to survive was all. The instinctive urge to reach those boats, to get out before the sea claimed the ship and took her down made Eva strong.

She heard children screaming for their mothers. Felt the fanatical clawing of another passenger as he was dashed from the deck by a monstrous wave. She clung on to Frederick, blind with panic, no longer caring who or what she was trampling.

They reached the lifeboat station and Frederick managed to grab Eva and pin her against an iron stanchion just as another wave hit the deck. Eva gasped as the force of it took her breath. It had struck hard. Washing the length of the ship in a fury of spume, it had taken everyone who had reached here before them.

‘Come on. Make a run for it.’ Frederick tried to wrest her from her hold on the stanchion.

All was blackness, all confusion. Eva had been numbed by the cold, the howling of the wind and the crash of the sea. Blinded by the sting of salt, she was frozen, incapable of moving. She knew only that she was clinging to something solid – something that had saved her from that terrible wave and the blackness that was all consuming.

Frederick pressed his body over hers as another wave battered the dying ship. It tore over them, wresting fingers from their hold, snatching their breath and any courage she might still have had.

‘Now, Eva,’ he yelled. ‘Come on.’ He tore her fingers from the stanchion and swept her up into his arms just as another wave poured over the bows and smashed in a hatch. Water tumbled into the forward holds. Acting as ballast, the bow momentarily righted itself.

Eva heard the faint sound of a creaking pulley as Frederick stumbled along the deck past the shattered remains of the funnel. A boat was being swung over the side. ‘They’re going without us,’ she yelled. ‘Stop them.’

The davits swung. The boat inched away from the tilting deck. If they didn’t do something before the next wave hit then they would be lost.

Frederick lunged as the Arcadia gave a vast, dying shudder and the lifeboat began to swing outwards – away from the ship.

Eva found herself flung from his arms and flying into the maelstrom. She opened her mouth to scream, but her breath was viciously knocked from her as she landed with a thud in the bottom of the lifeboat. Hands reached for her, helping her up, jamming her between the others who’d made it in time.

She looked up. They were dangling clear of the Arcadia. Frederick was still on deck. She could see the outline of him as he leaned against the railings. ‘Freddy,’ she screamed. ‘Jump, jump.’

He couldn’t hear her. The words had been ripped away by the wind. Drowned in the angry sea.

She fought off the restraining hands and grabbed the nearest sailor. ‘You’ve got to go back,’ she screamed. ‘My husband’s up there.’

He shook her off as the little boat rocked dangerously on the davits. ‘If I don’t get this rope unjammed we’ll all die,’ he shouted into her face. ‘Sit down.’

She had no time to berate him for she was sent crashing once more to the bottom of the little boat as it collided against the side of the ship. Hands no longer reached for her. The other survivors were too intent upon clinging to the sides of the boat. In despair she looked back at the Arcadia. She was breaking up fast, the rocks and coral ripping great gouges below the water–line as the sea lashed over her tilting decks.

‘Freddy,’ she moaned. ‘Oh my God, Freddy.’ Tears mingled with the rain and the sobs were dredged from deep within her as she watched a wall of water race from stem to stern. It swept the remaining passengers away into the night, their screams lost in the wind.

The lifeboat was also in trouble. With ever–increasing force it was being rammed against the side of the Arcadia. Soon the bow would be smashed to pieces. It was imperative the umbilical cord was cut from the mother ship.

While the seamen struggled to clear the wreckage that had become entangled in the davits, Eva strained to pierce the darkness for sight of Frederick. She could hear the screams of those in the churning water below, and feel the sickening lurch as once again the lifeboat crashed against the Arcadia.

But it was too dark. She could see nothing.

With no warning, the stern of the lifeboat plunged several feet towards the water. Eva’s screams mingled with the others, but they were cut short when the bow did the same. Like the other survivors, she clung to the side, eyes tightly shut, breath shallow as they swung level.

The boat hovered there for an instant, then plunged with breathtaking suddenness towards the maelstrom below. They landed with a bone–jarring crash and were immediately flung away from the dying ship by a gigantic wave. But the seams of that little boat held and the surviving men pulled hard on the oars to get as much space as possible between them and the stricken Arcadia.

Eva moaned in fear and grief. Out there, in the blackest of nights and in the vast, angry seas of this foreign ocean a ship had died, and along with it had gone her husband and every dream they had shared.

Home. It was an emotive word, conjuring up warmth and love and security. Yet, here she was, at thirty-two, back in a place that had remained only a provocative memory. A memory of eternal sunshine, of childish pleasures – a memory of something dark behind the brightness of the sun – something that only now, after twenty-two years, she was beginning to understand.

Olivia shivered, touched by something far colder than the light breeze coming off the sea. Those long-lost days of childhood had returned full force now she was here, and as she watched the children playing on the beach, she was drawn to one in particular.

The little girl was absorbed in making sandcastles, her fair curls glinting in the sun, her mouth pursed in concentration. It was as if time had stood still in the intervening years and she’d been granted a glimpse of how she had once been. As if she was the child, innocent, unaware of the tangle of secrets and lies that bound her to the people she trusted. And yet Olivia knew that innocence was priceless, for the truth, when it was finally revealed, could shatter everything she had believed in.

What kind of future did that little girl have, she wondered, as the child emptied the small metal pail and resumed digging. What secrets will overshadow her life? She hoped there were none. Hoped she was loved.

Olivia blinked away the tears that threatened and made a concerted effort to remain calm. The years of war had taught her it was pointless to feel sorry for herself. A waste of energy to let the rage surface and take over. She had learned there was little profit in letting the fear of the unknown waver her resolve. Better to use these still moments to garner strength and courage for what lay ahead. For the truth was here in Trinity, and she was determined to find it.

She tucked the handkerchief into her belt and brushed sand from the narrow shantung suit that had been considered the height of fashion in post-war London, but made her feel overdressed amongst the cotton frocks and swimwear of the others on the beach. Her white gloves, handbag and peep-toed high heels were all wrong too, and her smile was wry as she continued to watch the child at play. She hadn’t waited to book into the hotel. Had been too impatient to change first before coming here. For this beach, this tiny corner of northern Queensland encompassed all the memories.

Despite the bewildering and painful reason behind this trip, she had gleaned some fun from choosing a new wardrobe. It had almost been a relief to hang up her uniform for a while, to forget the horrors of what she’d seen and all the other responsibilities she’d shouldered as a nursing sister and become a woman again. Even though it meant using all the clothing coupons she’d saved.

With a deep sigh she leaned back on the wooden bench and took in her surroundings. She’d forgotten how much space there was. Forgotten how extraordinary the light after the darkness and chaos of London in the Blitz. Time, for once, seemed to have no meaning, each day following another at a leisurely pace, without the hustle and bustle she’d become so used to in England. It was as if the years of war had never been. As if this corner of the world had merely woken from a long sleep, the nightmares forgotten in the healing warmth of the sunlight the Australians almost took for granted.

As she looked around her, she saw that warmth reflected in the easy way of the people and in their cheerful attitude to life and welcoming smiles. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the scent of pine and eucalyptus that was tinged with sea spray. The magic of this special place had begun to work on her. How quickly she’d forgotten its force.

Olivia’s gaze swept over the familiar scenery. It was familiar because her dreams were of this place. Familiar because the memory of it had lived with her, deep in the yearning part of her being ever since she’d had to leave. Now the wonder of this homecoming filled her with such deep emotion she could barely catch her breath. Nothing had changed, she realised. It was as if this special corner of the world had been waiting for just this moment – like a precious gift, it seemed freshly unwrapped and sparkling - and she drank in the sights and sounds and scents she had once thought were forever lost to her.

The beach curved in a crescent of pale yellow sand that was lapped by the milky froth of the warm Pacific. At the furthest reaches of this arc lay sheltering cliffs of black rock that tumbled into the turquoise sea. These rocks were streaked with red, the colour of rust – the colour of the vast outback, which sprawled only a few hundred miles west of this peaceful bay. Pine trees and bright yellow wattle jostled for position along the clifftops, their roots buried in a thick carpet of pine needles, cones and rich black soil.

Olivia breathed in the fragrance that had been so much a part of her childhood, and as she watched the elegant pelicans glide across the water, she listened to the cries of the curlews and plovers. Home. This was home, regardless of the painful memories, regardless of the secrets she had still to uncover. Her time away had been short in the wider scheme of things, but in truth her spirit had never left. For like the native trees, her roots were buried within this black soil. She prayed only that they were deep enough to withstand the coming storm.

*

Giles ran a finger around his collar and wished he’d worn something more suitable. His tropical suit was rumpled and travel-stained, the collar too tight on his shirt, the tie strangling him. He pushed back the panama hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. The heat reminded him of Italy, and the interminable weeks he’d spent in the POW camp after being shot down. Escape had come at a price and even in these peaceful surroundings he thought he could hear the echoes of gunfire beyond the seabirds’ cries.

He tugged his hat forward and smoothed his moustache. He was doing this for Olivia, he reminded himself. It didn’t matter if he suffered a little discomfort. She was worth it.

Giles eyed the young woman sitting on the bench by the shore and although she was set apart, not only by her clothing, but by her demeanour, he knew instinctively she was content to be alone. Her thoughts had to be in turmoil, and he felt he understood what coming home had to mean to her. He’d experienced something similar when he’d finally left hospital and returned to Wimbledon, but if he’d been asked to describe the overwhelming emotions of that day he’d have been hardpressed. For they were legion.

He loosened his tie and collar and after a moment’s hesitation slipped off his jacket. The empty shirtsleeve would always be a reminder of his war, but he had to learn to come to terms with it. At least he was still alive. Placing the jacket on the ground beneath a pine tree he sat down and leaned against the rough bark. Lighting a cheroot, he watched Olivia through the drift of smoke.

She had been a part of his life for twenty-two years and he could still clearly remember the day she and her mother had arrived in that quiet street in Wimbledon. He closed his eyes and watched again as the crates and cases were carried into the house from the removal van. His eleventh birthday was a week away and he’d been hoping their new neighbours had at least one son young enough to play with. It was lonely being an only child.

Giles opened his eyes, his gaze immediately seeking out Olivia. He smiled at the memory of the sharp pang of disappointment he’d experienced when the little girl had emerged from the taxi. How wrong he’d been to think she couldn’t be a friend.

Olivia had intrigued him from the start, for she was different from anyone he’d ever met. Despite being a year younger, she enjoyed the rough and tumble of his boyish games, and positively thrashed him at climbing trees and riding their ponies full tilt across the common. She was brave and energetic, never bursting into tears or telling tales, and would wear the grazes and bumps of their adventures with a bravado he’d admired.

Giles felt the laughter bubble up as the snapshots of memory flashed before him. He’d poked fun at her accent once. He’d never done it again. For he’d soon discovered she could deliver a stinging punch as good as any boy.

He looked across the expanse of sand to the young woman on the shore, and felt the old familiar surge of love. Olivia’s rougher edges had been smoothed by the years at a girl’s boarding school, and the accent was gone, but there were still flashes of that famous temper, of the little hoyden who’d admitted in a quiet moment to feeling out of place in what the English termed ‘society’.

Olivia had come into her own during the war years, if the gossip on the wards were anything to go by. No-one could drive an ambulance quite as fearlessly, or deal with stroppy air-raid wardens and surgeons quite so effectively. Her energy and no-nonsense approach had served her well, and yet her gentler side had come to the fore when caring for the maimed and screaming as they had been disinterred from the burning rubble of the East End and brought into the wards.

Giles watched as she sat deep in thought. Small and slender, the straw hat shadowing her face, there was no hint of the passion he knew was encompassed in that little body – no clue to the experiences she’d had, or the bewilderment she must be suffering over the events of the past few months. The casual observer would notice only the aura of stillness that surrounded her, the neatness of her dress and the deceptive delicacy of her frame. On closer observation perhaps they would note the depth of fire in her dark eyes and the way the chin was held so defiantly – and garner a hint of the strength of will behind the elfin facade. Perhaps get a glimpse of the lustrous black hair she had refused to cut despite fashion and matron’s orders and which lay coiled neatly at her nape.

He flicked ash from his cheroot and sighed. How many times had he been tempted to unfasten the pins so he could run that curtain of ebony through his fingers? How many times had he wanted to kiss those dark winged brows and sweet mouth, to cup her face in his hand and feel the softness of her skin?

He dipped his head and grinned. Olivia would box his ears for taking such liberties – and quite rightly. For he’d never told her how he felt – had never dared risk the deep friendship they had shared over the years. Now it was too late. What woman, let alone one as beautiful as Olivia, would want him now?

Giles dismissed the fleeting moment of self-pity, recognising it for what it was, but acknowledging the truth behind it. Yet he was all too aware of the spark of hope that would not be extinguished. The hope that one day Olivia would come to love him.

He ran his fingers over the empty sleeve. The ghost of his left arm was still there, still aching, itching, tingling with a life it no longer had, and he supposed he would eventually become used to its absence. In a way, he mused, his missing limb was like his relationship with Olivia. There, but not really in the form and solidity he wished it to be. He’d had to settle for friendship – second best – and forget all the plans he’d made at the beginning of the war for marriage, children, and a home in the country.

He suspected she didn’t share his passion, but regarded him with deep affection as the elder brother she’d never had, the closest friend and keeper of her secrets. To speak of love would change things between them; bring an awkwardness that had never been there before, a shifting and withdrawal of their shared intimacies that would ultimately destroy what they prized. So he’d remained silent.

He stubbed out his cheroot, careful to make certain it was well and truly dead before getting to his feet and retrieving his jacket. He was being selfish, he admitted. Thinking only of himself when Olivia was obviously deeply troubled. She had made this journey for a reason – a reason, which unusually, she had so far not shared with him. He had no doubt she would tell him when she was ready, and he must be prepared to put all thoughts of love aside and be her anchor. For he had a nasty feeling they were heading for stormy waters.

‘Wait on a minute, why don’t ya?’ yelled Maggie Finlay as she struggled through the narrow door into the bar with the crates of beer.

‘A bloke could die of thirst,’ grumbled the shearer, who was in town for a few days to spend his hard–earned money before moving on to the next sheep station.

‘You’ll die of something far nastier if you don’t stop your whingeing,’ Maggie muttered as she stacked the crates beneath the counter and plucked out a bottle. She looked the shearer in the eye. He was a grizzled individual, with leathery skin and bloodshot eyes. ‘Money up front, mate. You know the rules.’

He pulled a ten bob note out of his pocket and slammed it on the counter. ‘Strewth, Maggie. What’s bitin’ you today?’

Maggie tucked back the wisps of brown hair that had escaped the bristle of pins she used to keep it neat, and blew out a breath. ‘The heat, the flies – having to run this place on me own while Sam goes fishing. So what else is new?’

She left him to his beer, turned back to the shelves behind the bar and began to run a damp cloth over them. Despite living so close to the shore, the outback dust still lay in a red film over everything, and Maggie wondered if she would spend the rest of her life trying to get rid of it. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirrors behind the shelves and sighed. The clean cotton dress was already sticking to her, and there was a smear of dirt where the beer crates had left their mark. Her hair, freshly washed that morning, already looked limp and dull, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. She was too skinny – more like a boy than a woman in her thirties, and the lack of decent make–up didn’t improve matters either. There seems to be no time to myself any more, she thought crossly. I look a sight.

Yet she liked living in Trinity. It was a nice little town, with enough passing trade to keep things fairly lively. Shearers and drovers came in from the Big Wide to spend their money, and the homesteaders left the awful heat of their remote stations and came to relax at their beachside cottages. All in all, she mused, she was glad she’d come here, even if the reason for the long journey north hadn’t quite been fulfilled. At least a part of her curiosity had been satisfied, and knowing what she did, she’d had to acknowledge that some things just weren’t meant to be.

I really shouldn’t grumble, she thought as she dusted. I have work, a roof over my head and the sea to swim in – to hell with everything else.

She looked in the mirror, gazing past her reflection to the room behind her. The hotel stood on the corner of the main street, which ran directly down to the shore. It was almost a hundred years old and had so far managed to escape fire, flood and the pestilence of white ants, but it needed a coat of fresh paint and some of the windows were webbed with cracks. Painted brown, it had two storeys, both surrounded by wrap–round balconies where the guests could sit in the shade and watch the world go by. The old hitching rails were still embedded along the kerb, but most of the hotel patrons arrived in utes and cars these days.

The bar was similar to any other in Australia, dark and sombre with fly papers hanging from the ceiling and a rickety old fan stirring the hot air in an attempt to cool the patrons down. There were a couple of rough wooden benches set against the walls, but most of their customers preferred to lean against the polished pine bar with their boots resting on the brass railing that ran just above the floor.

Maggie would have liked tables and chairs and vases of flowers about the place. Gingham curtains would have looked nice at the windows, and perhaps a bit of carpet to deaden the noise. Yet she knew this was out of the question. This was a man’s world and not even a second world war could alter that. They liked things unchanged, and probably didn’t even notice just how run–down and shabby the place was.

Women and their fancy ideas were still relegated to the lounge or the verandah, and after almost a year of working here, Maggie approved. After all, what lady would want to hear a load of blokes swearing and boasting, the volume rising in direct parallel to the amount of beer consumed? Fights broke out regularly – never anything too serious – but it was why the furnishings were kept to a minimum, and women kept out.

Maggie grinned, gave the shelves one more swipe and began to wash the glasses. She knew why she was having a bit of a blue – Sam. Impossible man. Impossible to deny her feelings for him. If only he would notice her – see her as more than a good manager and barmaid – see her as a woman. But she suspected Sam thought of her as just someone to clean and cook and take care of his business. A companion at the meal table, someone to chat to when the bar was closed and they could rest for an hour before retiring to their separate rooms.

Samuel White was the owner of the Trinity Hotel. A war hero who’d returned from Europe to find his wife and son had perished in a bush fire. He had turned away from life in the outback and had invested in this place. At forty–two he was ten years older than Maggie, but still had the energy of a man half his age. Tall, lean and tanned by the sun, his dark hair was winged with grey. He wasn’t handsome in the ordinary way, not until he smiled. Then his face lit up and warmth struck the startling blue of his eyes and emphasised the blackness of his lashes. Maggie was in love with him, God help her, and she would often lie awake at night and wonder what it would be like to share his bed.

‘Any danger of another jar?’

The shearer’s voice broke into her thoughts and she thankfully pulled another bottle from the crate and opened it. There was no point in wishing things were different between her and Sam, and thoughts like that were doing her no good at all.

The bar was slowly filling and the noise level was rising as an argument broke out on the possible winner of the Melbourne Cup which was due to be run in a week’s time. Maggie was sweating profusely as she served drinks, mopped up spills and tried to keep the peace between the warring factions. Her feet were hurting and her back ached, and there was still no sign of Sam. Love him or not, Maggie would give him a piece of her mind when he did show his face.

She was be