The Lace Balcony (41 page)

With a click of the tongue, Mungo set the pony off at a brisk trot. ‘There's a little bay where the natives chip oysters off the rocks. I'll trade some tobacco. You can't get oysters fresher than that, ladies. You'll think you're in seventh heaven!'

Vaguely aware that Mungo was in full story-telling mode, she held on to the bonnet being tugged by the breeze and forced herself to laugh in all the right places.

Her mind replayed the doctor's unbearably sympathetic expression as he delivered the sentence she had never expected. The words held no future hope of reversal. Unless a miracle happened – she died and was reborn in another woman's body. She could taste the bitterness that no fine wine would wash away.

I'm one of Nature's mistakes. Severin was
right.
I'm only good for one thing. To give pleasure to men who pay me.

A golden day the following week was heaven-sent for Mungo, ripe with opportunity. Felix was the unwitting cause, being clandestinely resident at
Mookaboola,
engaged in turning it into a showcase for his future mistress. The weather was perfect for Mungo's own secret plan. A boundless blue sky with only the occasional wisp of cloud to prove it was not a trick reflection of the ocean. The sun was tuned to the right temperature – neither hot enough to burn a snow-white English complexion, nor cool enough to spoil his plans for a bivouac.

He dressed with care, albeit casually, in bleached moleskin trousers, a red neckerchief at the throat of his striped shirt, his gold watch chain linked across his sheepskin vest, a broad-brimmed bush hat on the back of his head – and his usual confident swagger.

He drove the L'Estrange wagon from the livery stables to the front door of his mother's cottage. Hat in hand, he rapped on the new lion's head knocker.

‘To what do I owe the honour at this hour of the day?' Jane asked warily.

Through the archway linking the two downstairs rooms, he glimpsed Vianna, seated at the kitchen table. The cursory glance she cast his way before continuing to write on her slate told him two things. He was distinctly out of favour, and his mother had become Vianna's ally.

What the hell have I done to offend Vianna? She's been acting strangely ever since her visit to Sandy's surgery. Mam says her fatigue is my fault, for ‘making the girl swallow the alphabet whole'. But Vianna's keen to learn to read, so what's the matter?

Mungo stated his case to his mother but pitched his voice to carry to the back of the house. ‘I'm off to the Illawarra to sort things out with the overseer of the sawmills. Local bushrangers are bailing up everything that moves, including bullock trains carrying cedar to Sydney.' He stopped short.
Hell, that's hardly likely to entice her out.
‘Anyway, it's a beautiful day. I wondered if Vianna might like to come
for the ride – and a picnic on the beach. I reckon a mermaid gets hungry for the sight of the sea.'

Jane beckoned him inside. ‘Sounds like a good idea, Mungo. You've had the girl pouring over her books non-stop for days. She could do with a dose of fresh air.'

Vianna was cool. ‘Thank you, no. I never go out without a maid to attend me.' Jane raised her eyebrows at Mungo in an expression that needed no words. ‘Well, sit yourself down, son. The water's playing and you'd best get a cup of tea into you before you depart.'

Seated at the kitchen table, Mungo drained the teapot dry as slowly as he could, to give himself time to dredge up every ounce of charm he possessed in the hope of bringing Vianna around to his way of thinking. He sensed that Jane, while not openly taking sides, was subtly backing his cause.

‘It's the time of the year bush animals are showing off their young, Vianna,' he said in a wild exaggeration of the truth. ‘You've never seen anything as endearing as a wallaby mother with one joey's head peering out of her pouch while she gives his little brother a lesson in bush survival. It's natural for natives to hunt them for food, of course, but it makes my blood boil to see white men shoot 'roos for their pelts – and abandon orphan joeys to starve to death.'

Vianna stared at him wide-eyed. Her lip trembled.

That's got her attention. As long as I don't overdo the pathos, she's hooked.

He was grateful that his mother never missed a cue. ‘Mungo's been rescuing wounded bush animals since he was no bigger than a joey himself. My son might appear to be a tough lad, Vianna, but his hands are gentle and he knows just how to make sick animals feel safe. Many a time he's sat up with one all night, feeding it every few hours, so I could catch a bit of sleep.'

Vianna was impressed enough to put her slate aside. Jane riffled through the drawer of the dresser and withdrew a calico bag, a small blanket and a baby's bottle.

‘Here, lad, just in case you find another of God's little creatures injured.'

Mungo packed the articles in his saddlebag and aimed a look at Vianna balanced between respect and regret.

‘Sorry I can't change your mind, Vianna. It's hard to drive a wagon over rough bush tracks and cradle a sick animal at the same time. But I appreciate how important a chaperone is to protect a lady's reputation.'

‘I'd offer to accompany you, lass,' Jane said quickly. ‘But I promised the Master I'd make him a herbal infusion to help the poor man get a few hours' sleep.'

That was the excuse Vianna's pride needed. ‘I wouldn't want an animal to suffer on account of my reputation – such as it is.'

Mungo gave his mother a quick farewell hug then lifted Vianna up onto the seat of the wagon he had loaded with boxes, casks of grog, tools and bedding. Jane rushed back to the kitchen and returned with a pot of stew ‘to save time'.

‘Thanks, Mam. I reckon we'll be back by sundown. Can't be sure exactly when – so don't worry. The lady's in good hands.'

Accepting advice, Vianna had changed into Jane's stout walking boots and was armed with a shawl, shady hat, gloves and a lace parasol as a sop to her vanity.

By the time they reached the Gothic toll gate on the Parramatta Road, Mungo was whistling a haunting Irish air. He had made no attempt to open the conversation, counting on Vianna's curiosity being too strong for prolonged silence.

‘It would seem you've packed enough food to feed the 57th Regiment of Foot. Do you plan to drink all that grog yourself?'

‘The L'Estrange sawyers and bullockies will make short shift of it.' He jerked his head towards the rifle. ‘That's in case we run into trouble.'

‘Bushrangers?'

‘More than that. Where we're headed there's growing hostility between the settlers and some native tribes. The outbreak of smallpox in '29 and '30 wiped out a lot of them along the South Coast – not surprising. I reckon after thousands of years isolated from us, they probably don't have much resistance to white man's diseases. Anyway, it's hardly surprising the remaining tribal men are angry. Herds of cattle have taken over their hunting grounds so they've lost a lot of their sources of food. And the place is rife with convicts who bolted south.'

Vianna tried to put a brave face on the news. ‘How far away is the Illawarra? You told Jane we'd be home by sundown.' '

‘Yeah, but I didn't exactly say
which
sundown. That's the exciting thing about the bush, Vianna. You can never predict what adventures you'll have when you're a hundred miles from nowhere. Anything from being baled up by bushrangers to a broken wheel or lost horseshoe, or mosquito bites and snakebites. So I always come prepared for anything – especially when I have a lady on board.'

‘Ladies are a specialty of yours, are they?'

‘I had my fair share – before my
holiday
at Moreton Bay. ‘I didn't live like a monk, you know.'
Maria Navarro and her girls for the most part.

He began singing ‘The Black Velvet Band' and as he expected, Vianna's sweet, true voice joined him. She sang the words as if they were drawn from her own life.

Mungo felt light of heart. Their voices blended well, a good omen.

Later in the day, on reaching the crest of a high mountain pass, Mungo drew the wagon to a halt and presented his companion with a sweeping view of the coastline, where the intense blue ocean met the skyline, only one shade lighter. On the horizon was the minute white speck of a ship under sail, so distant it appeared stationary.

‘It's odd to think that ship comes from a world I've never seen. The native lands of my Mam, the L'Estranges – and yours too. Do you ever feel homesick?'

‘I miss England's spring – and snow at Christmas. But all my family are dead. Daisy and I are the last links in the chain.'

Moved by the catch in her voice he gestured towards the expanse before them. ‘Hey,
this
is your home now.'

Vianna remained silent.

Below them, stretching as far as the eye could see, a silver crescent of sand lay in wait for the rhythmic return of rolling lines of white-crested waves thundering onto the beach, sucked into the sand and drawn back beneath the next giant wave. Distant cliffs stood like giant bookends north and south of the beach, the ocean shooting up like a fountain each time the breakers smashed against the huge boulders fallen from the cliff faces that held the ocean at bay.

Vianna threw her arms wide as if to embrace the scene. ‘It's huge.
I've never seen anything like it. Such pure white sand. Not a soul in sight.'

‘Glad you like it. I paid a fortune to hire it for the day,' he said, straight-faced, and was rewarded by a sidelong smile.

The place he chose for their picnic displayed a superb combination of nature's gifts. He pointed out its advantages, the deep cave with an overhanging ledge to protect them from all weathers, tropical palm trees for shade, the beach only a stone's throw away, and a freshwater stream that gurgled from the base of the waterfall that fell through a cleft of the mountain pass towering above them.

Wallabies played in groups in the open grasslands in the lush, tropical valley between the hills. The bird life was amazingly diverse, noisy, multi-coloured, swooping in concurrent patterns. Vianna was anxious they would collide in mid-air.

The champagne Mungo had ‘relieved' from his father's cellar he wedged between rocks to chill in the freshwater stream.

Vianna looked nervously at the approaching figure of a young native, armed with a cluster of spears. Trailing a few paces behind was a young black girl carrying a dilly-bag on her back from which a tiny babe's head protruded.

Mungo rose to greet them with a broad smile and politely offered his name along with a pouch of tobacco and a tin of tea. The young black man accepted the gifts and reciprocated with two fine fish from his catch. He wore nothing but a glistening white smile and a skimpy piece of red cotton hanging from the belt at his waist. Vianna quickly averted her eyes but managed to draw a shy, fleeting smile from the girl, now cradling the lighter-skinned babe.

Mungo chatted with the young native before the pair went on their way.

Vianna was curious. ‘I thought you said the natives were hostile. He seemed friendly to you – but clearly didn't want to know me,' she said.

‘Aborigines avert their eyes to be polite. To stare is very bad manners.'

The ridges of scars across the native's chest and arms had been a sharp reminder to Mungo of the stripes from the lash that would forever scar his own back.
His ceremonial scars are worn with pride,
badges of manhood and courage. Mine are the scars of punishment and injustice.
As he unpacked the wagon, Mungo tried to block the searing images of Moreton Bay.

‘I'm thirsty, Mungo. Would the champagne be cool enough to suit your palate?' Vianna asked plaintively.

He laughed in relief, glad to return to the reality of a beautiful girl's thirst. And his own hunger for the night that lay ahead. He wanted to stay here forever.

Champagne and the heat of the sun went to Vianna's head, changing her mood to childlike pleasure as Mungo had hoped.

‘I'll cook the fish. If you want to cool down, don't wade in any deeper than your knees. The undertow's so powerful it would drag you out to sea and to New Zealand before you could say Jack Robinson.'

‘Isn't it against the law to swim in daylight hours?

‘Maybe in Sydney Harbour. No traps around here for miles.'

‘I've only got one day dress. I can't afford to ruin it,' she said.

He soon had a small fire going and kept his back to her to give her privacy.

‘Strip off if you want. There's no one but God watching. But keep talking, so I know you haven't drowned.'

From the corner of his eye he saw her skirt drop to the sand, and the way she bunched her petticoats in one hand and waded into the water, skipping across the waves as they reached the shoreline, their size and danger diminished in the shallows.

Mungo felt a rush of pleasure, not only at the forbidden sight of her ankles and legs, but by her delighted squeals as the waves played against her body. His imagination rewarded him when she came up behind him and placed cold wet fingers across his eyes to block his sight.

‘Guess,' she whispered.

‘A mermaid – the only one in the world who never learned to swim.'

He averted his eyes while she replaced her sodden petticoats with her skirt.

‘The first time I saw the sea was when our vessel sailed from Southampton.'

‘You came to the right place. Australia's the largest island in the
whole world,' he said with pride. ‘We've got the Pacific off the east coast, the Indian Ocean off the west. We could circumnavigate the whole continent some day if you want.'

She paused in the act of collecting shells in the hem of her skirt.

‘You must plan to be very, very rich, Mungo.'