Her Rags-To-Riches Christmas. Laura Martin

      It took an hour and a half to reach Djalu’s house, a neat wooden hut with a fresh coat of paint on the door. The old man himself was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair just outside the door in the shade of a eucalyptus tree.

      ‘Australia’s prodigal son returns,’ Djalu said in greeting, a wide smile stretched across his face. ‘I was worried you might have found something to keep you away. Especially when those two convicts came back two years ago.’

      Although he, Robertson and Crawford had all set sail together for England, circumstances out of their control had meant both George’s friends had cut their trips short and boarded ships for Australia long before George had been ready to come home.

      ‘Mudga dhurdi,’ George said in greeting, causing the old man to open his mouth wide and begin guffawing with laughter.

      ‘Your pronunciation hasn’t improved in your absence,’ Djalu said with a shake of his head. George saw the old man turn his gaze on Alice and waited as he looked her up and down, smiling genially all the time. ‘Your wife is far too pretty for you,’ he said after a few moments.’ He turned to Alice. ‘You’re far too pretty for a rugged old man like him.’

      ‘She’s not my wife,’ George said at the same instant that Alice spoke up.

      ‘I’m not his wife.’

      Djalu looked at them both for a long moment, then shrugged. ‘It is a shame. Fitzgerald is always alone.’ He turned his attention back to George. ‘It is not good to be alone in this world, my friend.’

      It would not do to point out the old man was alone. Over the years George had found out a little of his history. It wasn’t pleasant or comfortable. Djalu had always lived in the area, travelling and living off the land as the native people of Australia had been doing for centuries. His stories told of how he’d been there when the first fleet had arrived, been dazzled and awed by the arrival of a shipload of Englishmen. Then in the smallpox outbreak that followed he’d lost his wife. Disease after disease, new to his tribe, had ripped everyone he had ever loved from him within ten years of the English landing at Botany Bay.

      ‘Would you care for some bark tea?’ Djalu motioned for George and Alice to sit, pointing at the only other available seat, a roughly hewn wooden bench that would only just fit both of them.

      Alice hesitated for a moment, glancing at George, then perched herself on the very edge of the bench. George sat down next to her, doing everything he could not to touch her, but his legs brushing against her anyway. It was warm even in the shade of the tree and George shrugged off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and running a hand around the back of his neck to try to cool himself. Next to him he could feel the heat coming off Alice’s body and he wondered how uncomfortable she must be in the tight constraints of her dress. An unbidden image of her loosening the ties at her back and letting the dress drop down to her hips popped into George’s mind. In it she was looking over her shoulder at him enticingly.

      George almost laughed—he couldn’t imagine Alice ever looking at him like that. He glanced across at her, hoping she couldn’t sense the subtle change in his demeanour. He needed to stop having these inappropriate thoughts, otherwise he was just as bad as she’d imagined him to be. Just as lecherous as all the other men who’d tried to take advantage of her. Just as bad as his father.

      ‘Mr Fitzgerald won’t bite you,’ Djalu said, frowning at the stiff way Alice was leaning away from George. ‘He’s a good man, not like those brutes on the ships.’

      George was always amazed at how perceptive the old man was. In just a few short minutes he’d analysed Alice’s behaviour and come to the correct conclusion.