The men regarded the trunk and cast a quizzical look at its owner. ‘Travelling light are we, lady?’

‘There’ll be a shilling in it for you,’ Eliza said.

The older of the two rasped his beard and glanced up the hill at her uncle’s house.

‘Hope you’ve got a stout pair of boots in there,’ he said. ‘You’re going to need ’em.’

Eliza glanced down at her mud-caked leather town boots and sighed. Perhaps it was just as well Will had not been there to meet her.

She thanked Burrell for his assistance and lifted her bedraggled hem. Dodging puddles, pack horses and wagons, she made her way up the main road to the zig-zagging track that led to her uncle’s house, followed by the two men carrying her luggage. She arrived breathless from the exertion of the steep climb to the front door. As she waited for her knock to be answered, Eliza glanced back at the way she had come. The town lay below her, snaking its way haphazardly along the line of what had once been a stream but now looked—and smelled—like an open sewer. A large tailings heap at the north end of the town marked the existence of a sizeable mine, the newly crushed rock bright against the older slopes that rose behind the buildings and machinery. That had to be her uncle’s mine, the Maiden’s Creek Mine that Will had described in his infrequent letters. The slopes that rose above the town had been largely denuded of vegetation, apart from occasional clumps of raggedy eucalypts and sad tree ferns, and she had a clear view of the troublesome bullock dray, its load now righted, picking its way down the road into the town, guided by the disrespectful Scot on his chestnut horse.

Melbourne indeed! She had no intention of going back to Melbourne or England or anywhere else. After the years cast adrift from her family, her place was here beside her brother, building a new life together.

‘Yes? Can I help you?’

Eliza started and turned back to the house. A small, neat woman in a brown gingham dress under a spotless white apron held the door open, her brow creased in suspicion.

Eliza summoned a smile. ‘Good afternoon. My name is Eliza Penrose and I’m here to see my uncle.’

The colour drained from the woman’s face and she took a step back. ‘Miss Penrose? Mr Cowper said nothing about expecting you.’

‘I presumed my brother, William, would have told him that I had left England and would be joining him here at Maiden’s Creek,’ Eliza said, too exhausted to be polite.