Ghost Gum Valley (60 page)

Marmaduke decided to count to ten before he ventured a comment.
If what Isabel told me is true, Rhys Powell may have done the deed. Does Garnet suspect he's a cuckold?

Everyone appeared too stunned to respond so Marmaduke at last broke the silence. ‘So Garnet, I take it congratulations are in order. I am to have a young brother or sister. That
is
a surprise.'

Garnet's face was a mask of indifference. ‘Congratulate Elise. More to the point, you should congratulate Rhys Powell. None of my doing. I've been fully occupied elsewhere,' he said with insulting emphasis, openly glancing in Bridget's direction.

‘That's a dastardly lie and you know it,' wailed Elise. She knocked over her wineglass as she stumbled to Garnet's side, grasped the lapels of his coat and shook him.

‘You can't do this to me. After all I've done for you, all I've suffered at your hands, forced to fulfil
your needs
in that ghastly attic. Tell them the truth, I beg you. I am having your child, Garnet. I am! I am!'

While she shook him, Garnet's hands hung limply by his sides as though incapable of touching her. Finally his lack of resistance forced her to stop.

‘If only that was the truth,' Garnet said quietly. He shook himself free of her and walked from the room.

In Marmaduke's eyes his father seemed suddenly transformed into a tired but dignified older man. One look at Isabel and he knew they were of the same mind.

Thank God for my girl. She keeps a cool head in a crisis. Perhaps that is the quality that helped her survive her own childhood trauma.

He drew Isabel aside and placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

‘Take Elise to her room. Stay with her until I come to you. I must go to Garnet and get this sorted out. I don't want to be guilty of shoving a woman who's with child out into the snow, so to speak. Especially as the babe she's carrying might be my brother.'

He watched Isabel shepherd the weeping Elise towards the stairs, gently assuring her all would end well but that she must think of the babe and not to overtax her strength.

Marmaduke felt saddened by this evidence of Isabel's motherly
instincts. God willing little Rose Alba would in time arrive safely and fulfil the one need that Marmaduke would never be able to satisfy.

Distracted by the sound of a horse approaching at a gallop he went outside to greet the courier. The letter from Edwin was urgent. Two men had been charged with Rupert Grantham's murder. The date had been set for the trial. He must act at once.

He dismissed the servants and, left alone, fortified himself with a glass of wine before confronting his father on the delicate subject of the paternity of Elise's babe.

Marmaduke's thorough search of the house proved that Garnet was not in his usual bolthole, his library or anywhere else. Marmaduke questioned all the servants who had been on duty all evening. None had seen or heard Garnet exit the house. That left no place to try except one. The priest's hole.

He took a candlestick, touched the secret panel and sprang up the stairs. The priest's hole was empty. But Marmaduke fancied he could feel the residue of pain that was trapped in this tiny dark space. A hole indeed. Not used as in past centuries in England to escape from religious persecution, this priest's hole served for Garnet's vain attempts to escape from his guilt by suffering self-inflicted physical torment.

Marmaduke closed his mind to a brief flash of pity and closed off the priest's hole.

Hurrying down the picture gallery he paused by his mother's portrait.

‘Where the hell is he? He's crazy enough to top himself.'

Marmaduke blinked. Was it an illusion caused by the flickering candlelight or had the dark eyes in the portrait for one split second glanced upwards? Marmaduke had the sudden thought of the one place he had not thought to look.
The parapet walkway.

He backtracked to the seldom-used spiral staircase that led to the roof.

The night air was chilly when he stepped out onto the castellated parapet that ran between the gothic gables of the roof. The sky was filled with that extraordinary map of the Southern Hemisphere's stars that always convinced him that Creation was no mere accident. He stopped short when he saw the figure standing at the far end of the parapet so close to the edge that Marmaduke was uneasy.

The breeze was blowing Garnet's mane of white hair and the eyes that turned to him held a wild, bewildered sadness that made Marmaduke remember Edmund Kean's portrayal of King Lear.

‘Mind if I join you, Garnet?' he asked and took a few tentative steps towards him, watching him intently for any sudden movement and prepared to hurl himself across the space between them.

Garnet looked surprised. ‘Leave me alone. What are you doing here? You should be in bed with your bride.'

Marmaduke tried to sound casual. He had despised this man for most of his adult life, but he had no wish to see him leap to his death. Not even Mingaletta was worth that price. He decided not to raise the question of Elise's revelation in case that was what had disturbed the balance of Garnet's mind. He had no idea what on earth to say until the words came out of his mouth in a desperate, inspired improvisation.

‘I wanted to have a private word with you away from the women. Man to man. I came to ask your help, Garnet.'

‘Did you indeed? That's a turn up for the books,' Garnet said, but despite the sarcastic edge to his voice, Marmaduke saw that his back straightened and he seemed to be trying to resume his mantle of authority.

Marmaduke took another step closer and leant an arm casually on the edge of the parapet.

‘I didn't want to discuss it with Isabel without first asking
your
advice. You know how emotional young girls tend to be about bolters and all that stuff.'

‘Indeed. What's wrong?' Garnet seemed suddenly alert and cooperative.

‘Nothing really. A courier just delivered an urgent message from Edwin. Advising me that some cargo from England that I've been expecting has just arrived in port. And that the date has been set for the trial of James Leech and Will Barrenwood, the two young bolters accused of murdering my friend Rupert.'

‘So they've caught 'em at last. Let's hope the jury makes short work of the trial and the villains swing for Green the Finisher.'

‘My feelings exactly, Garnet. But the problem is I've been asked to go to Sydney Town to serve on the jury.'

‘Why's that a problem? Do your duty and hang the bastards!'

‘Naturally I want to honour Rupert's memory by serving on that jury. It's the last thing I can do for him, but it means leaving Isabel behind. It would put my mind at rest if I knew that Isabel was safe in your hands.'

‘Do you think I'm too old and infirm to protect the girl in your absence? What kind of a Miss Molly do you take me for?'

Marmaduke laughed and casually placed his arm around Garnet's shoulder. He began to steer him towards the spiral staircase. ‘I knew I could count on you, Garnet. Isabel could not be in safer hands than yours. I can leave her in your care with a clear conscience.'

‘Of course you can, m'boy. We'll play chess together and Isabel can play the pianoforte for me. I'll keep the girl happy and free from worry, you can be sure of that.'

Garnet seemed unconcerned about Elise's revelation. Marmaduke wondered if it was another of her phantom pregnancies or if it was a deliberate ploy to force Garnet's hand.

Marmaduke gestured for his father to precede him down the staircase and with a sense of relief bolted the door securely behind him in case Garnet was tempted to return to the roof alone. He would order Bridget and the servants that the door must be kept locked.

He must warn Isabel to play the game and give Garnet the illusion he was protecting her.

Chapter 42

Garnet and Marmaduke were like two raging bulls with their horns locked in a duel to the death. It had all begun at the breakfast table with the question of firearms. Isabel had hoped that, as this was the morning of Marmaduke's departure for Sydney Town to sit on the jury of the Grantham murder trial, for once father and son could part company in a state of peace.

‘Don't tell
me
how to run Bloodwood Hall. I've been managing this estate since you cut your milk teeth, boyo!' Garnet roared. Clearly he found Marmaduke's opinion an affront to his manhood.

Marmaduke kept his anger under control although the edge in his voice was sharp enough to cut glass. ‘I'm simply confirming what every landholder in the county knows. You need men to guard this place night and day. Men who carry arms.'

‘Are you blind? I've had that in place for months past.'

‘Yeah,
assigned
men. But who knows where their sympathies would lie if bushrangers front up here to avenge Fordham the Flogger's brutal treatment of your Government men? You, their assigned master, are legally and morally responsible, but for years you've appeared to tolerate Fordham's methods.'

‘I'm a far better Master than any landowner around here, damn you! I've stopped Fordham cutting their rations. And Paddy Whickett was the last man flogged here. I leave it up to Magistrate Summerhayes to pass sentence.'

‘Yeah, but all this has come years too late to whiten your
reputation
.'

Isabel leapt into the fray. ‘Please stop, both of you. We can't change the past, but we can all pull together to change the future. Please don't part in anger. If something happened to either of you – you'd never forgive yourself.'

‘Isabel's right,' Marmaduke said coolly. He offered his hand to his father, who shook it for the sake of appearances.

Isabel managed a final word alone with Marmaduke. ‘I'm anxious
about you travelling alone, armed or not, but I know you have no choice. Rupert was your friend and being on that jury is the last thing you can do to honour the memory of a great crusader. His murderers must not be allowed to go free.'

‘That's if these two bolters did the deed. That's not proven yet. I suspect it's going to be a volatile trial. Anyone can walk off the street and enter the courtroom. James Leech had escaped from an irongang just before Rupert's murder and the other one had bolted from his assigned master, so no doubt the court will be packed with these blokes' sympathisers. I might find my fellow jurymen biased in their favour or ready to hang them because they
are
bolters.'

‘There could be no better man than you to sit on that jury. Rupert Grantham will be counting on you to fight to see that British justice is seen to be done!'

Marmaduke gave a short laugh and called across to Garnet, who was observing them. ‘What did I tell you, Garnet? Forget about all that de Rolland blue-blooded crap. This is one gutsy Currency Lass!'

Isabel remained on the terrace watching Marmaduke's retreating figure gallop through the avenue of Bloodwood eucalypts to the iron gates, where he turned and gave her a mock military salute in final farewell.

My God, what have I done? What if I've sent him to his death?

Banishing that fear, she smiled wistfully at the memory of his parting words. ‘Being a gutsy Currency Lass must be Marmaduke's idea of a high compliment. I'd better try to live up to it.'

The track was bordered by bush wildflowers; Isabel rode astride her mare in the direction of the Gamble graveyard the following afternoon. The tiny, sunny faces of these native flowers were a world away in nature and geography from the English bluebells and daffodils she had gathered as a child from the fields beyond the de Rolland country manor.

Isabel's destination was her weekly visit to Miranda's grave, a duty of care she had taken on in the knowledge that the ribbon-tied bouquets of flowers she took from the garden to honour Miranda's memory were a tribute that also pleased Marmaduke, Garnet and Queenie.

Honouring her promise to Marmaduke, she carried a lady's muff pistol in the purse attached to her belt. But today it was difficult to be afraid. The sun was shining so brightly her shady straw hat was little protection. Heat penetrated the layers of fine cotton that already clung to her skin. She was reminded of the ever-so-correct English maxim: ‘Only men sweat, ladies
perspire
.'

Isabel grinned. ‘Whoever said that had never lived in Australia. When it runs down your back and chest and soaks you to the skin, it's
sweat
not perspiration!'

Miranda's grave was in an isolated spot on the edge of Mingaletta some distance beyond the white picket fence that bordered the graveyard so Isabel dismounted, tied her mare's reins to the trunk of a sapling and walked on foot to the grave.

She removed last week's wilted flowers from the stone urn and filled it from the water bottle she had brought. She addressed a few words to Miranda's soul as she always did. This time she was quite firm.