Miles McGinty by Tom Gilling

Author:Tom Gilling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC014000, FIC009030
ISBN: 9781921834479
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2003-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Some days after Isabel had left for her uncle’s house in Emu Plains, Mrs Dowling discovered a letter. It had been propped against the brass balloonist and his dog but the wind had blown it down. ‘Dearest Mama,’ it began,

I told you I was going to visit Uncle John. What I forgot to mention was that I am not going there directly. I’ve decided to see the country. I don’t mean the river at Parramatta but something further afield. I thought I might go to Melbourne but now I’m not sure. I would very much like to see Adelaide too, and the Murray River.

Of course I expect you to be horrified, and for Papa to announce that he will mount an expedition to fetch me back. But I have no wish to be fetched and so I won’t tell you where I’m going, although I shall certainly write at every opportunity. You mustn’t worry as I have plenty of money and an atlas, so there is no likelihood of my getting lost. You also mustn’t think I’m mad, or running off with a stableboy, or was lured away by anything other than curiosity and restlessness, which is all quite satisfactory in a boy, who can buy a horse and go out exploring, but very frustrating in a girl, who is expected to lie down on the settee until she feels better.

Mama, you will probably suspect a conspiracy and blame Uncle John, but he did nothing more than lend me twenty pounds when I asked for it (I didn’t tell him what it was for) and will be as surprised as you to hear the news. I could write another page and say some obnoxious things about Windsor but I’m sure you wouldn’t believe them, so I shall stop here and say I love you and will come home when I’m ready and I promise not to get married without telling you.

Isabel xx

‘It’s my brother’s fault,’ cried Louisa.

‘Don’t worry,’ her husband reassured her. ‘We’ll mount an expedition. She can’t have gone far. We’ll have her back in a day or two.’

Isabel’s sisters were indignant and were all for setting the black trackers onto her. But her parents, after fuming for a day, accepted the news with surprising equanimity. They realised they were powerless. And of all their daughters—in fact of all the people they had ever met below the age of thirty—they knew that Isabel offered the least encouragement for thinking she wouldn’t do what she had set out to do. They closed her bedroom door and awaited her return.

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