The Last Pearl by Leah Fleming

Author:Leah Fleming [Fleming, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471140983
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

34

It had been one of those days at the saw mill. His best foreman had been off sick, there had been a new delivery of logs for sawing, a machine that had needed fixing and there was a back log of wood on the wharf. There was a brief lunch with another man wanting to set up a canning factory and who was looking for premises and a letter from Effie complaining he was neglecting her.

Surrounded by heat, fumes, dust and the drunken chatter of river men, Jem was ready for some peace and quiet and time to think. He made his way to Hogey’s billiard room where he caught sight of the new Englishman who had been dealing round the camps – a tall willowy man with a sandy moustache who always seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. Tonight he was hugging his glass, looking fed up and as if he had all the troubles of the world on his shoulders.

‘Mind if I sit?’ Jem asked as he plonked his rangy frame onto the padded bench covered in fake tartan. The man looked up surprised and shrugged his shoulders. ‘New in town?’ he continued, curious. He didn’t look like the usual dealers he met on his travels. The man nodded.

‘Eben Slinger, late of England.’

‘James Baillie, late of Scotland. Funny how many of us Brits are landing this side of the pond. You in the pearl business?’

‘That obvious?’ Eben smiled. ‘You go where the rivers are ripe at this time of year and you see what you can find.’

‘How long have you been in town?’ Jem noticed the acquisitive glint in the man’s eye, appraising the value of everything it saw, looking him up and down assessing him.

‘Too long. We arrived in eighty-six . . . I don’t fancy another winter like the last but it’s a good base. You’re a dealer too?’

‘Ach, no, not since I got regular work in lumber but I’m interested in the new industry here. You aren’t camping then?’

‘No, my wife and I have a house up the road. I prefer to travel around. She prefers to stay put. Camp life is not suitable for the likes of women, is it?’

‘Clammers are good folk if you treat them right but I wouldn’t walk through a camp on a Saturday night in the season. There’s some wild coves with dogs and cudgels who don’t like visitors. Does your wife like it here? There’s plenty of work for women in the town and on the farms if you need it.’

‘My wife doesn’t work.’

Jem saw he had touched a raw nerve by the look on the man’s face.

‘You work hard to give them what they want and they go behind your back. She’s just taken on one of those orphan brats from the train. Goodness knows why . . .’

‘I’ve just had a letter from my fiancée complaining I don’t give her enough time but a chap has to make his mark in the world while he’s young,

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