Striking Gold

1. Opposites

4th November 1852 Willowbrook, New South Wales, Australia

Hilda Boudicca Montague absolutely loved her country.

Its flora and fauna are unique and wondrous in their splendid way, from the wattle brush with its golden poms to the koalas munching away on the eucalyptus leaves; Hilda couldn't think of a better place in the world.

The beauty of this once untapped land, which many knew existed but hadn't found for centuries, was now being called home by many who saw it as the first chapter of their new lives in the new world.

People from many countries flocked onto the first ships sailing to Australia, braving the months at sea on a creaking wooden boat in weather not desirable to call this giant land in the Southern Hemisphere home.

Hilda's Montagues family had set up in Willowbrook in the 1820s. The town was a three-hour carriage ride from Sydney, the newly declared colonial city of New South Wales by the New South Wales Legislative Council, which her maternal grandfather, Justice William Whitfield, served, given his career as a judge in the colony.

Hilda's father, Charles, had settled in Willowbrook in 1829, after the death of his father, and took over his father's business as a pastoralist and shipping magnate, as George Montague and his wife, Letitia, had come to Australia as free settlers and begun working as a pastoralist before recognising the potential in shipping the white gold he sheered from the sheep overseas to other countries, including England.

George's decision to export wool from Australia enabled the Montague family to attain the wealth and prestige they now enjoy in London. They had established their British office there and conducted a significant portion of their trading business, while the wool would come from Willowbrook and be transported to Sydney for shipping.

Charles took this great inheritance and set up residence in Willowbrook within months of his father's passing. During a society event in Sydney, he met, fell in love with, and married Miss Elizabeth Whitfield in 1830.

Between 1832 and 1850, Charles and Elizabeth would have many children, six daughters and a son, but were pleased to have living children, regardless of their sex. Justice Whitfield was delighted to have many granddaughters he could brag about to his colleagues on the Legislative Council (and likely influence to marry well) and a grandson he could assuredly mould into the image of a proper gentleman of the colony.

Charles and Elizabeth went to live in the Montague house in Willowbrook, Whitegold Manor, a twenty-minute walk from Willowbrook's Main Street.

Whitegold Manor was a Classical Revival-style house with three stories of rooms, an attic, and a basement. The exterior was coarse white stone, and tall columns with intricate carvings of the wattle brush ran from the ground to the top of the house, where they looked like they were holding the roof over the stairway leading to the front door.

The inside had high ceilings in the entrance, with an ornate chandelier that could honestly be mistaken as belonging to Buckingham Palace, judging from the delicate beauty of the massive light fixture. It would be an eternal pain to lower it every night to light the candles and steadily raise it back to its place high above the heads of those on the ground floor.

The grand staircase had stairs going to the left or right of the upper wings of the house and descending to the ground in a straight staircase fashion, a rich dark mahogany wood imported from England, with motifs of vines and leaves carved into the railings of the staircase leading to the upper level of the grand house, and a deep green and gold runner in the middle of each step, providing a gentler feel underfoot with the harsh wood textures on the side, adding to the elegance of the staircase itself.