Ghost Gum Valley (11 page)

Submerging himself under the waves of the incoming tide, he swam the length of the beach close to the shoreline, reminded that Aborigines seemed devoid of fear of shark attack. But when he had examined sharks strung up by the tail, their eyes and jagged rows of teeth, ghastly in death, he felt a strong desire to avoid them.

Drawing his clothes on over his wet body, he was suddenly cheered by the thought that today, after his weekly visit to his partner Mendoza's store to discuss the latest shipload of English jewellery of dubious legal provenance, he had arranged to take Edwin to lunch.

How pleasant it is to get drunk with a fellow bachelor. Who the hell would be tempted to fall in love on a beautiful Sydney day like today?

The Sign of the Red Cross was one of an ever-diminishing number of inns owned by Garnet's rival landlords. It wasn't frequented by the Quality but the Hunter Valley wines
were
top quality. Marmaduke had it in mind to buy shares in a winery.

As he paused by the entrance, he was confronted by the sight of a bedraggled woman with blood seeping from her skull, being dragged
along in the custody of a police constable in the direction of the George Street Watch House.

Marmaduke idly wondered how many of the Colony's victims – men, women, children, bond, free or Aboriginal – were denied basic British justice?

Edwin spends his life fighting for the rights of outcasts and under-dogs. I'm a parasite living for the pleasure of the moment. I wonder why Edwin puts up with me?

In the private room he had booked he found his friend's head bent over a pile of legal papers, his spectacles teetering on the edge of his nose. His lawyer's wig lay slumped on a vacant chair. The crown of Edwin's head revealed a bald patch like a monk's tonsure surrounded by wisps of sandy hair. Although Edwin was past thirty and had an air of entrenched middle age, Marmaduke felt as protective of him as he would a younger brother.

He placed his arm around Edwin's shoulder. ‘Is there never an hour of the day you free yourself from saving the world, mate? Today you're my guest. Here to take lunch with me and, God willing, get drunk with me. Legal work is taboo!'

‘Ah, yes. Good idea in theory. But I was just combing through documents that concern
you.
They bear Godfrey de Rolland's signature. Your esteemed father finally released copies of the documents from his London lawyers to enable me to study your dilemma. I must say it's a most intriguingly explicit marriage contract.'

‘Not to
me
, mate. It feels more like a bloody noose around my neck.'

Over their first bottle of a new label claret Marmaduke gave full attention to the legal scenario and waited for Edwin's verdict.

‘There you have it. You appear outraged by what you consider your father's manipulation, my friend, but I must confess myself a little surprised by your naiveté. There are three points you need to consider.

‘One: it has long been common practice in England for marriages between upper-class families to be arranged to their mutual advantage. Two: your father's an Englishman and despite the grudge he bears the British System for his unplanned departure—'

‘Transported. Fourteen years for theft,' Marmaduke corrected
mildly. ‘We're both adults, mate. No need to hide behind euphemisms like half the Colony does.'

‘Quite. But despite Garnet Gamble's status as an Emancipist, or indeed because of it, he is hungry to embrace all things granted to the English Quality – I suspect, to prove he is not only their equal, but a better man than many who Came Free.'

Edwin paused. ‘And Three. There is the problem of
you
!'

Marmaduke agreed. ‘Ah, there's the rub!'

‘Leave Shakespeare out of it for once,' Edwin said crisply. ‘Your father has spent a quarter of a century building his empire and made every attempt to educate his son to be a gentleman who is more English than the English.'

‘Fat chance of that!' Marmaduke said as he signalled their waitress to replace their empty bottle of wine. He raised a toast to Young Werther, the colt he'd entered in the next Hawkesbury race meeting but Edwin was like a dog with a bone.

‘Marmaduke, are you blind? Garnet's conditional pardon means he can never return to England. Yet the upper echelons of Colonial Society are too rigid, too insular for him to be able to live down his youthful crime. His fortune has failed to buy him the two things he craves. Respectability and acceptance. You alone can achieve that for him if you, forgive my choice of words, agree to
marry up.'

Feeling betrayed Marmaduke raised his voice. ‘I thought you were my friend! Why are you pushing me to tie the knot with some boring English virgin whose sole redeeming feature is her long pedigree? You want me to cave in to my social-climbing father so that I can inherit my mother's land which is rightfully
mine
!'

‘Morally, yes. Legally, no. You forget her Will wasn't signed,' Edwin said calmly. ‘I strongly advise you to meet Isabel de Rolland before you decide categorically to jilt her. This marriage contract is so watertight the Devil himself could have drawn it up. It boils down to this. If your fiancée sues you for breach of promise your father stands to forfeit a huge sum in addition to the fortune he's already paid out. This would wipe out your father's Bloodwood Hall estate—'

‘No tragedy to me. I hate the bloody place.'

‘But also swallow up your Mingaletta estate. Is that what you want?'

Marmaduke sat back in his chair, stunned by the full import of the contract.

‘Shit! It sounds like those bloody aristocrats are just as determined to see this marriage proceed as Garnet is. What's wrong with her? Has she got two heads?'

‘Family honour is at stake, Marmaduke. Their honour, not yours.'

‘You know what drives Garnet crazy? For years he's been paying informers to report on my movements. I've never consorted with a marriageable girl since I was jilted and I'm totally discreet about my liaisons with older women. Garnet suspects I'm what Saint Paul called blokes who “loveth their own kind”.'

Edwin was angry. ‘That's no joke. The death penalty for sodomy remains on the Colony's statute books and it only takes two men to
swear falsely
as witnesses and The Finisher's in business to string you up!'

‘Don't worry, mate. I've got a great lawyer. Let's drink to women, God bless 'em!'

Edwin sounded faintly envious. ‘Your life is fun and games but no responsibilities.'

‘Dead right. I've proved how easily married women are open to seduction once they've got a wedding ring. I'd trust 'em as far as I'd trust a Caribbean pirate.'

Edwin eyed him thoughtfully. ‘I don't know whether to envy you or pity you.'

‘I'm more interested in laying hands on Mingaletta than a shipload of
pirates in
petticoats
!'

They were both startled by the sultry voice of the black-haired serving maid who leant over to place a huge platter of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding between them.

‘No pirates in petticoats on the menu today, gentlemen!'

Marmaduke noticed the girl wasn't exactly young, maybe twenty-five, but she was magnificently buxom, had a naughty smile and was every bit as beddable as she was Irish.

He quickly recovered enough to ask her name, which Maeve supplied in a lilting accent that suggested it was a favour rarely given to gentlemen.

The provocative way she leant across the table granted Marmaduke a fine view of the globes of breasts pressed against her low-cut bodice, barely inches from Edwin's face.

‘Enjoy your dinner, gentlemen. And if there is any rare vintage you fancy,' she added over her shoulder, ‘you have only to ask.'

They observed in silent appreciation her hip-swinging departure.

‘Now that's a
real
woman. She clearly fancies you, Edwin. I can recognise an invitation in a woman's eyes when I see one.'

‘Let's stick to business, shall we?' Edwin carved the beef and they washed it down with another bottle of Hunter Valley claret.

‘Third bottle's always the best,' Marmaduke pronounced sagely.

Edwin lay down his knife and fork. ‘Care to hear my suggestion for ridding yourself of a de Rolland bride without depleting the Gamble fortune in a breach of promise case?'

‘Try me!' Marmaduke paid strict attention as Edwin outlined his recommended plan.

‘Trust you to come up with something dodgy but legal, mate. Will it work?'

‘Play your cards right, but one false move and you'll be caught in your own trap.'

Marmaduke gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘For that folly to happen a bloke would need to fall in love. Physicians can immunise people against small pox. Me, I'm totally immunised against
love!
'

Chapter 7

London, March 1833

The great proscenium arch curved over the Covent Garden stage like the portal to a world of dreams that Isabel had been waiting to enter since she was a small child.

From the pit below and from the tiers of giant horseshow-shaped galleries above her came the buzzing sound, pierced by raucous laughter, of an audience restless for the red velvet curtain to rise and begin tonight's performance.

Waves of excitement ran through the audience. Isabel felt that she was the only person present who waited in tense silence. Tonight was an experience she wanted to savour to the full. In her first ever visit to a London theatre she was seated close to the stage in the dress-circle box used by generations of the de Rolland family. She clenched the stem of her fan, folded in contrast to the sea of painted and feathered fans fluttering to counteract the heat and smell generated by the crowd of perfumed and unwashed bodies.

Isabel blocked from her mind the inevitable departure of the
Susan
, scheduled to sail in a few days from the Port of London. Cousin Silas's assurance that the Calcutta-built vessel was seaworthy and speedy and would take the more unusual Madeira route to New South Wales hardly mattered to her.

Tonight one half of her childhood dream would be fulfilled. She would witness the legendary magic of Edmund Kean. The other half of her dream remained a secret she hugged inside herself – to be an actress who played Desdemona to Kean's Othello, Lady Anne to his Richard III, Juliet to his Romeo, Ophelia to his Hamlet. An impossible dream all the more beautiful because it hurt no one.

Seated all around her were high-born ladies dressed in evening finery, bedecked with feathers and jewels. She admired rather than envied their fashions but draped Martha's cashmere shawl around her shoulders to disguise the grey worsted travelling ensemble that was
her only decent outfit until she took delivery of the bridal trousseau from Paris. Reassured that her hair at least was
á la mode,
she patted one of the long side curls that escaped artlessly over each cheek. Old Agnes had worked all afternoon to dress her hair in the current style copied from a fashion paper.

Isabel glanced at her hands, naked of rings. She owned no jewellery and her heart sank at the ironic thought that when her ship sailed into the Penal Colony at Port Jackson, she would be forced to wear the hated gold wedding band of servitude.

She was excited by the wild fancy that the
Susan
might be wrecked before it cleared the English Channel, washing her ashore in France or Portugal where under the pretence of amnesia she could begin a new life under a new identity.

Now there's a plot worthy of Will Shakespeare. But tonight is mine! I'm witness to an event in theatrical history – the first ever performance of
Othello
by the Keans, father and son. The master's legendary Othello opposite the Iago of his son Charles.

Isabel suddenly felt anxious. What was causing the delay? The performance had been scheduled to commence at half past the hour. Isabel felt her heart beat uncomfortably fast, catching the throb of anxiety in an audience that had also braved the night's storm. Were they here out of loyalty or cynicism – to see the great Edmund Kean return to the stage in triumph or to watch him suffer another disastrous failure?

At age forty-six he should be at the pinnacle of his illustrious career but all newspaper reports in recent years showed that England's greatest tragedian was plagued by scandal, ill-health and drunkenness. During his second American tour some volatile audiences had worshipped him as a hero. Others had pelted him with tomatoes.

She whispered in prayer, ‘Please God take pity on him tonight.'

‘Is your prayer offered up for me,
ma petite cousine
?'

Isabel was startled from her reverie, so caught between the waves of excitement and anxiety that she had forgotten the presence of her escort, who had rejoined her after smoking in the gentlemen's saloon. Against Uncle Godfrey's orders Silas had arrived at the family's townhouse that morning to farewell her.