Ghost Gum Valley (5 page)

Beyond these gates the avenue that stretched for a quarter-mile to the house was guarded on either side by a row of eucalypts that had doubled in height since the night Marmaduke had galloped down this carriageway blinded by rage, vowing never to return. The sight of these Bloodwood trees and their heady eucalyptus smell triggered a memory of himself as a small boy, standing at his mother's knee on the front terrace.

Her beautiful face was lit by the glow of battle. ‘I told you, Garnet, I do not want English elms!'

Marmaduke saw his father's face darken and, as usual, he took out his anger on whoever was close at hand. Today, the target was his surly overseer, Fordham the Flogger, who Marmaduke instinctively knew was trying to keep face in front of their assigned men.

‘You heard the lady, Fordham. What are you waiting for, man? Get 'em to rip out those elms. So what if you did plant 'em last week? Replace them with those damned Bloodwood trees. By nightfall!'

Garnet tossed his parting words over his shoulder. ‘That make you happy, Miranda? Is that Australian enough for you? As if we haven't got enough gum trees in this damned colony!'

Marmaduke's heart grew a notch lighter at the memory of one of his mother's rare victories. At least her beloved trees had survived.

Before he had time to open the gates a figure stumbled out of the
darkness, a convict blanket clutched around his shoulders, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The lad hastily touched his forelock, pulled the bolt then swung on the gate to open it.

‘Sorry, sir, just nodded off, I did. No need to tell me overseer? Won't happen again.'

‘Rest easy, lad,' Marmaduke said lightly. ‘But why didn't you ask my name? I might have been a bushranger come to overhaul the place. Plenty of bolters in this locality, I hear.'

‘I knew you was the master's son. For weeks past we've all been told to expect a fine English gentleman like yourself, sir.'

‘The clothes are English but make no mistake, I'm Currency born and proud of it.'

Marmaduke asked the lad's name then tossed him a coin.

‘Can I stable your horse for you, sir?' the boy asked as he trotted alongside him.

‘Not yet, Davey. I have a call to make before I announce myself to my father,' he said, knowing full well that Garnet would be aware of his presence the moment he set foot on the estate.

At the end of the avenue Marmaduke saw the dark Gothic outline of the house was just as he remembered it. The double-storey mansion with its side wings and strange cross-bred style of architecture had been designed and built to his father's exact orders.

All the conflicting emotions Marmaduke had felt since childhood returned with a force that surprised him – hatred for this mansion but love for the surrounding land. He rode to the rear of the house to what was in effect a village – rows of assigned men's whitewashed cabins, a blacksmith's forge, dairy, storehouses and the overseer's cottage. In the English rose garden stood the wrought-iron dome of the aviary where his mother had kept her beloved multi-coloured budgerigars, the tiny prisoners Garnet had ordered his assigned men to capture from the bush for her, and where their tiny feathered descendants continued to live.

The delicate sound of a fountain playing reminded Marmaduke of his first visit to Paris three years before. Standing by a fountain at the edge of a crowd, alone and awkward. Until that magical moment when an older woman, dressed in full evening regalia and a white wig, smiled at him with her eyes. Without a word she slipped her arm through his and led him to her bedchamber. The lady spoke no
English. His French was fluent enough to appreciate the subtleties of Molière and Voltaire but when spoken his Australian accent drew a tolerant smile and a Gallic shrug. He never did know her name. But the delicate lines of her face and the erotic suggestions she whispered in the dark schooled him in a night of love he would remember all his life.
Every youth should be initiated by an older woman who is mistress of the love arts
.

Marmaduke followed the old familiar track towards Mingaletta. Before he faced his father at Bloodwood Hall, Marmaduke needed to reclaim two precious links with his childhood. First to visit his mother's land, Mingaletta, then take a short detour to see Queenie, the nanny he counted as his second mother.

The track to Mingaletta had always been open to the sky but during his absence the bush had reclaimed it. Ahead of him lay the ridge that formed the invisible western boundary between his father's estate, Bloodwood Hall, and the ruins of Mingaletta, his mother's dowry and his imminent inheritance.

To Marmaduke, this boundary was far more than a geographical line on a map. It marked the delineation between his past and his future.

His pulse quickened at the thought of his first ride down this track. A memory that brought with it the taste of a child's pleasure – and fear.

Today was his fourth birthday. At the sight of his father's gift he was overcome by awe. The dark colt was led by the new groom who Marmaduke recognised by his worn, bleached clothing as one of that other race of people – the convicts.

His father turned to his mother. ‘What do you think of the boy's birthday gift, eh, Miranda?'

Marmaduke saw his mother's hands outstretched in denial. ‘You can't be serious, Garnet! He's a brumby, half wild by the look of him. It isn't safe for a child.'

‘It's time to put them both to the test.' Garnet ordered the groom, ‘Proceed.'

Marmaduke felt a surge of importance, suddenly airborne as the groom swung him up into the saddle. His short legs trembled in anticipation as his mother cried out.

‘No, Garnet! Don't do this to me. Don't use him to punish
me
!'

Garnet drowned out her protest. ‘Control yourself, madam. Your
days of pampering the boy are over. He's mine now. I'll make a true Gamble out of him or one of us will die in the attempt.'

Marmaduke looked into his father's eyes, shocked to realise the man was suddenly a stranger, his face as blank as the faces in the portrait gallery upstairs.

With a gesture of great deliberation Garnet cracked his whip across the colt's rump.

Marmaduke's breath was torn from him in painful gasps as he crouched desperately in the saddle, his feet unable to retain their hold of the stirrups, his hands clinging to the horse's mane. Every moment he expected to hear Garnet's laughter when the colt bucked him to the ground. Yet somehow he did not fall. He clung on to the bolting horse, sensing that what lay ahead of him was that unseen wild valley where the brumbies ran free. Mingaletta.

Blind terror was splintered by a new emotion, a magical flash of triumph. This brumby was now part of his own body – they were joined together to become one animal. He was born to ride!

That day Marmaduke had discovered the truth. He could trust horses. But never again would he trust his father.

Now when he reached the crown of the ridge he drew his cloak around his shoulders as the wind whipped his hair. The open grassland in the valley below stretched for miles towards the folds of the mountain range.

He smiled at the sound of horses' hooves galloping wild and free. The brumbies. Black, brown, piebald, though their leader was as white as a unicorn. He led his mob down the length of the valley. Marmaduke let out a whoop of exuberance as the brumby king headed straight towards the tall chimney and the stone cellar walls – all that remained of his mother's homestead. The brumbies charged through the grassy corridor between the ruined walls and bolted towards the mountains.

‘I've come home to honour my promise, Mother.' He spoke the words aloud, half addressed to her, half to the land itself.

Queenie's whitewashed two-room cabin was some distance from the other buildings on his father's estate and was the oldest building, the first dwelling Garnet had built for himself on his initial land grant. It was exactly as Marmaduke remembered it, still surrounded
by Queenie's cottage garden, smelling of Indian herbs and English flowers.

‘Did you think you could sneak back home without me knowing?' Queenie asked in that familiar tart tone he knew was her camouflage for deep emotion.

The moment he saw her Marmaduke tried to mask his shock. Her dark eyes were young and luminous but her classic Indian features were now haggard with age.

Her tiny frame was lost in his silent bear hug then he held her at arm's length. ‘My God, Queenie, you've found the secret of eternal youth. You don't look a day older than when you spanked me for telling lies.'

‘Don't think you're too old – though now your lies are called flattery. Come in and get a proper breakfast into you. You look half starved.'

‘I will, Queenie, the minute I've confronted Garnet. You know why I'm home. Mother wanted you to share in Mingaletta. Just as soon as he signs over the deeds to me I'll rebuild the homestead and build you a little place of your own close by me. You were my second mother. Now it's my turn to take care of you. You'll never have to live here in Garnet's grace-and-favour cottage again.' Marmaduke tried to make his question casual. ‘How is the old boy? Edwin Bentleigh says Sydney's hot with rumours that Garnet's spending money like a drunken sailor.'

‘Who knows? I've hardly spoken to the old reprobate since you deserted the ship.'

Marmaduke gently pressed for an answer. ‘But does he seem pretty normal to you?'

‘Well, he still rides around the estate bellowing out orders and throwing wild fits of temper. But Magistrate Summerhayes and the bank manager dine here regularly, so there's not much hope of him being locked up in a lunatic asylum just yet.'

Marmaduke gave a grim nod. When he kissed her goodbye, Queenie caught his arm to detain him. ‘No matter what fool thing Garnet says, just hold that hot temper of yours in check. Remember, Miranda will be watching every move you make!'

On his return Marmaduke led his horse to the stables and turned
him over to Davey's care. Watched by assigned men at work, who each acknowledged him with a surly nod, he strode to the front of the house ready to make his entrance.

His eye was caught by a movement of the curtains at the upper windows of his mother's chambers, the room where he had watched her die in childbirth. For a split second he imagined the shadowy figure was his mother's ghost. Then he realised it was no wraith. It was Elise. Who else had that arsenic-white flesh, that flowing mane of auburn hair? When she covered her mouth Marmaduke realised she had also recognised him.

So my father's whore is still in residence. Usurping Mother's role, sleeping in her bed. No doubt wearing Mother's jewellery.

The front door was opened by a sassy young servant with wild curly hair and an Irish accent. Her bold glance clearly placed her as being assigned. No English servant would have dared look him over from head to foot.

‘I am Bridget. To be sure ye are being the Prodigal Son.'

Marmaduke brushed past her. ‘No need to announce me to your master.'

Outside Garnet's library, he squared his shoulders and muttered, ‘Here goes, Mother.'

Garnet Gamble was seated at his desk. His mane of white hair, unblinking stare and bared teeth gave him an uncanny resemblance to the lion's head trophy mounted on the wall.

Marmaduke stood poised in the doorway and gave his father a deep, theatrical bow.

Garnet's voice was as strong and scathing as ever. ‘Ah-ha! The Prodigal Son returns at long last, his tail between his legs.'

That was enough. Marmaduke's cool resolve instantly vanished.

‘The rotten apple never falls far from the tree, Garnet.'

Chapter 4

For the first time in more than four years Marmaduke was face to face with his father. A swift glance around Garnet Gamble's domain reminded him how curious it was for an illiterate man to surround himself with books in three languages.

The firearms and duelling pistols in the glass cabinet were placed side by side with an Aboriginal bark shield, a lethal-looking woomera and a hunting boomerang that had belonged to the tribal elders he remembered as a child. Marmaduke felt the bitter irony.

Symbols of the unequal struggle between us and the tribes we dispossessed.

But the two trophies most prized by Garnet hung framed on the wall. The certificate of conditional pardon signed by Governor Macquarie in 1810 was the proof of his freedom. The document that proclaimed his initiation as a Freemason into the Australian Social Lodge No 260 on 3 March 1823 was the proof of his social acceptance.

Marmaduke flung himself into the winged leather chair facing Garnet's mahogany desk. To Marmaduke this chair was a witness box for the accused. From the time his legs were too short to reach the ground, he had endured paternal tirades of abuse about his behaviour.