The Lace Balcony (48 page)

He looked startled. ‘I beg your pardon!'

‘If I accepted your offer, your son and Jane Quayle's son would never forgive you. You are the one and only person who can heal the lifelong rift between them.'

‘My God, you are an impertinent wench! How dare you speak thus to me!'

‘I dare to tell you the truth, Sir.'

Jane Quayle was standing in the doorway, a wide-eyed witness to the scene.

Vianna was determined to have the final word. ‘For what it's worth, I give you my word as a friend of both your son and of Mungo Quayle. One way or another I shall quit this place within a few weeks, Sir.'

Vianna gave a deep curtsey and left the room, her eyes smarting with unshed tears. As she hurried towards the doors to the garden, their words drifted back to her.

‘What on earth did you say to her, Kentigern? I brought her here at your request. To meet her – not to insult her!'

‘Forgive me, Jane. I needed to test her. The woman is everything that's said about her – but so much more. I suspect I have discovered the perfect mistress for one of my sons. The problem is – which son?'

Over the breakfast table Mungo scanned the Colony's newest newspaper,
The Sydney Herald.
He skipped the front page packed with columns of advertisements, shipping lists, land and horse sales, and went straight to the colonial and world news.

Digesting events in Europe that had occurred some fourteen weeks earlier, he shook his head in disbelief. ‘Seems half of Europe's got its back to the wall.'

Felix made no response beyond, ‘Hardly surprising, England, Prussia and the Frogs being what they are.'

Mungo was instantly on guard.
Something's up. Felix is unusually chipper for this time of day. He's usually picking out Prussian items of interest to Mrs Less.

Felix was now humming a lively snatch of martial music that Mungo failed to identify but knew belonged in some opera. Felix was dressed to kill. ‘I'm off to beard the manager of the Bank of New South Wales in his lair. Father's old
bête noir.
Trust I can talk him around to the L'Estrange advantage.'

He drained his coffee and rose from the table. ‘Where are you headed? North, south, east or westward ho?'

‘No instructions as yet.'

Felix was gone, leaving Mungo distinctly uneasy.
He's too cocky by half. What does he know that I don't? Must keep my ear to the ground for servants' gossip. Molly's a good source.

Mungo made his way to the office where, judging by the stacks of files and the scarlet legal seals on the documents, his father was enjoying a fresh surge of energy, resuming his hold on the reins of his rural estates and his shares in shipping and wine companies and in John Macarthur's celebrated Australian Agricultural Company.

The patriarch struck straight to the heart of the problem, his speech almost restored to its former confidence. ‘Your last report – all that fancy fine print you stumbled on!'

‘A problem, Sir?'

‘Not yours – theirs! Damned good insight. The bank was about to trick me. You're learning fast, lad. Even Mrs L'Estrange can't fault you.'

Mungo fiddled with the hat he held in his hands, pleased by the unexpected praise. He idly wondered how his father addressed his wife on the rare occasions they were alone – but their time alone was probably confined to the latest rounds in their marital battle.

‘What's on today's agenda for me, Father? Boadicea's rearing to go.'

Kentigern looked up from studying a document through a magnifying glass, his expression curiously guarded.

‘You realise I cannot take sides between you and Felix. The less I know about your private affairs the better. But I can't avoid hearing servants' gossip.'

Mungo gave a sigh of resignation. ‘What are they saying about me now?'

‘You staged a public fight over that woman Venus, whoever she is.'

‘Are you telling me, or asking me, Sir? You taught me never to bandy a woman's name.'

‘It hardly comes under the heading of mere gossip, if you've got the wench stashed right under my roof.'

‘Under
my
roof, Sir. The lady in question is under Jane Quayle's protection so I'm not risking
your
family name – only
mine
.'

Kentigern looked discomforted. ‘Point taken. Can't say as I blame you. From what I've seen of her, standing like Juliet on your balcony, she's a rare beauty.'

‘I won't argue with that, Sir.'

‘My problem is Felix. I put my name to that damned contract before I knew the lie of the land. No more blood spilled between brothers, d'you hear?'

Mungo noted the sad acknowledgment of their sibling rivalry.

‘If the lady chooses Felix of her own free will, I promise you I'll take her decision on the chin. But
until
she decides, I'll go down fighting Felix or any other bloke. It's an open secret she has a past. I'm determined to be the
last
man in her life.'

‘Choice seems clear cut. Mistress to a wealthy man or marriage to a poor one.'

‘That's it in a nutshell. I'm not complaining. I'm grateful to you for employing me until I get back on my feet. But I aim to make my own fortune my way. Just as you did yourself as a young man when you arrived in the Colony.'

‘Aye. But I had a distinct advantage. An old family name opens doors in colonial society – it gained me my first land grant from Governor Macquarie. But those days are long gone. The end of an era.'

He waved in irritation at a newspaper on his desk. ‘This incoming Governor, Sir Richard Bourke, is said to have proved himself a liberal as Governor of the Cape Colony. Those radicals Wentworth and Wardell claim he intends to change the system. Phase out transportation and attract free settlers. In which case they'll back him in
The Australian.
But you can't expect the Exclusives to take those changes lying down. There'll be blood on the streets, mark my words.'

‘Where do
you
stand, Sir?' Mungo asked, aware his question was impertinent.

‘Same place I've always stood. Walking a tightrope between idealism and the conservation of my hard-earned fortune.'

‘Right. So where do
I
stand on the tightrope today?'

‘Bring me a full report on my estates on the northern shore. On my desk tomorrow.'

‘Consider it done, Sir.'
Hey, perfect timing to check out Mookaboola.

Mungo was halted momentarily by his father's seemingly casual parting words, ‘There's no need for you to run it by Felix first.'

He passed his mother as she entered the office, her usual basketful of herbal tinctures over her arm. At sight of the Cockney manservant George lurking at the end of the corridor, Mungo politely inclined his head to his mother.

‘Good morning, Miss Quayle. Mr L'Estrange is waiting for you to change his bandages.'
Make some gossip out of that if you can, George.

•  •  •

Boadicea was always ready to charge off on an adventure away from the noisy confines of the town. Today Mungo felt the eager, nervous energy in her muscles as they crossed the harbour by wherry.

Silent Jack the Waterman grunted as he rowed past the house on Milson's Point of his rival waterman, the legendary Jamaican, Billy Blue, whom Macquarie had admiringly named ‘The Little Commodore'. Ahead of them was the private wharf on the northern shore that met the track to Hunters-hill.

This was Boadicea's first ever harbour crossing, but with Mungo's reassurance she behaved like the champion she was born to be.

‘I reckon the country's going to the dogs,' Silent Jack said sagely. Mungo decided he was probably younger than his weather-beaten hide suggested. Lugubrious and articulate, he cheerfully aired his views on the changing status of the Colony and the ‘wars of libel' being raged between Governor Darling and the editors of all the newspapers, except the government's mouthpiece,
The Gazette.

Although born free, Jack had inherited his Irish accent second-hand from his parents, proud that they were old lags who had done well.

‘Came free yourself, did ye?' He eyed the cut of Mungo's jib, asking the standard question out of casual interest, not to prove one man better than another.

‘No, mate, I'm Currency. I'm here to check out my master's estates.'

‘You wouldn't be a L'Estrange, would ye now?'

Mungo was startled. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘For weeks past I've been ferrying across pine crates addressed to that name.'

‘That figures. L'Estrange is my master.'

Silent Jack's mouth turned down at the corners in an odd grin of approval.

‘Well, you'd best stay in his good books, lad. He's clearly a man who doesn't hold back from spending a penny or two.'

Mungo knew that was his cue to tip him well. But as he had little cash on hand, he added to the standard fare a small flask of whisky from his saddle bag, as an added incentive for Jack to collect him promptly at five that afternoon.

‘No doubt you'd prefer Irish whisky?' Mungo asked.

‘I'm ecumenical when it comes to whisky, lad. I'll even drink the health of the English King if there's whisky on offer.'

Jack called back across the water his promise to return at five. The sun glinted on the flask, proving that Jack was already putting the whisky to good use.

A thick carpet of feathery-fingered gum leaves covered the track through dense bushland, deciduous native eucalypts, pines, palms and giant ferns, not a tree in sight naked of leaves except those ring-barked ready for felling.

To Mungo
this
land was paradise on earth. He drank in the heady eucalyptus aroma, snapping off a switch of slender, red-tipped gum leaves, flaying it alternately across each shoulder to keep occasional insects at bay.

In no rush to arrive at
Mookaboola
and face Felix's plans for Vianna, he took his time on the road. He called out a cheery greeting to the tenants of one of his father's smaller estates and a mile later crossed the path of a convict shepherd squatting under a tree smoking his pipe. The lad glanced anxiously at Mungo as if expecting to be reported for slacking on the job. Mungo introduced himself and set the boy's mind at rest by stopping to share his tobacco pouch, casually mentioning he was only here to visit the Hansons at
Mookaboola.
He noticed the youth's red eyes were ringed by shadows.

The farmhouse was markedly grander than Mungo had expected: a double-storeyed stone Georgian rural cottage with two dormer windows in the hip roof, its concession to the climate an additional vine-covered terrace on two sides. Set on the highest point of the land, with a clear view of all points of the compass, it was surrounded by a lawn that was patently struggling to regain its green after a summer burnt by the sun.

Mungo dismounted and picked up a handful of red-brown earth, surprised by the quality of the soil, unexpectedly richer than the poor, sandy soil on the southern shore.

Following the flagstone path, he noted with amusement
Mookaboola's
bald-headed overseer nodding asleep in the planter's chair on the terrace. Stirring awake, the old lag introduced himself as Hanson, clearly unsure about the degree of respect or servility he needed to show this man, Kentigern L'Estrange's employee, yet similar enough in looks to be his master's son.

Mungo sensed his dilemma and attempted to quash any gossip.

‘The name's Mungo. My mother, Jane Quayle, was assigned to Mr L'Estrange when she arrived on the
Alexander
in 1806. I find him a fair man to work for – I trust he treats you well?'

The realisation that Mungo was a Currency Lad, born of a convict mother, pleased Hanson as much as if he had discovered distant kin. ‘Indeed. A fine gentleman. Only met the master once, but. Come inside, lad. My wife'll soon rustle up a good meal for you. Grow all our own vegetables and fruit, we do. And I always keep a side of mutton hanging in the cool room in case of company. It's a lonely life – but beats the hell out of a road gang.' His rueful laugh was open acknowledgment of how his life in the Colony began.

Mungo was quick to unpack his saddlebag and deliver the bottles of wine he had taken from his father's cellar with his approval in order to lubricate the meeting. They were soon engaged in discussing the farm's problems, the loss of sheep due either to Aboriginal spears or theft by bolters.

Even though they were alone, Hanson lowered his voice to confide the trouble caused by Burney, a young assigned lad who was now ‘in the bush', that quaint euphemism for a bolter turned bushranger.

Mungo went for the truth. ‘Why did Burney bolt? Was he flogged? Without a magistrate's sanction? I trust you didn't cut his rations as punishment?'

Hanson looked offended. ‘I swear to God I'd never do such a thing. Deserved or not. Mr L'Estrange would never hold with that kind of punishment.'

‘You can bet your life he wouldn't. He prides himself on being a humane master.' Mungo refilled the nervous overseer's glass. ‘Was it theft?'

Hanson glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his wife cooking in the skillion. ‘Worse. I caught young Burney in
the act,
you understand? Out in the open. I threatened to turn him over to an iron gang. So he bolted.'

‘I understood Mrs Hanson was the only female in residence here.'

‘She is.' Hanson said significantly, ‘His partner in crime – was another lad.'

‘Right,' Mungo said.
How the hell do I handle this? I know what I'd do – nothing. How would Father react? Well I'm here and he's
not. There's a crucifix nailed above the door so I reckon the Hansons don't hold with sodomy.