by Di Morrissey
Odette hurried to keep up with the boy’s long strides, listening intently as he described the once grandiose stables and gatehouse. But she was not prepared for the magic of the Indian House. They came upon it suddenly in an isolated section of the grounds. Set on a slight rise but hidden by trees, it sprang from the illustrated pages of an old storybook. A miniature replica of an Indian palace, it stood incongruously in the Edwardian gardens.
‘What is it? Why is it here?’ Odette was entranced, and ran up the marble steps.
‘My dad said the man who built this place went to India when he got married and they liked all the palaces and stuff. So he had this built for his wife.’
‘How romantic’ Odette examined the intricately carved woodwork around the doorway. She wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Sandalwood. Smell. It’s nice.’
She obediently sniffed as they pushed open the doors and stepped into the dimness. Odette caught her breath. ‘Ooh, it’s wonderful.’
‘I never get sick of looking in here,’ whispered the boy. ‘Look at the walls.’
Gingerly Odette ran her hand over the dusty red velvet sprinkled with glittering tiny mirrors. The velvet was shredding in patches and many of the little mirrors were missing, a faint patch of glue showing where they had been set into a flower pattern. The velvet went halfway up the walls. Above it and all over the ceiling were miniature frescoes in gold framed panels — decorated elephants, rajahs, tigers, beautiful women in silken saris, monkeys and splendid lush gardens — exotic illustrations from myth and history.
But it was the windows that fascinated Odette most. They were made up of tiny pieces of odd-shaped glass of different colours which fitted together in a sparkling jigsaw puzzle. The daylight which speared through the glass fell on the white marble floor and splintered into myriad multicoloured fragments, giving the effect of an intricate and dazzling carpet.
There was little furniture save for a large square wooden platform, with tall posts at each corner and an arched, carved canopy above.
‘Is that a bed?’
‘I think so. Lie on it and look up.’
She stepped onto a small carved footstool and stretched out on the wooden base and stared up, giving a delighted laugh. ‘Wow . . . it’s fantastic!’
The boy clambered up beside her. Unselfconsciously they lay side by side gazing up at a sparkling jewelled night sky inlaid in a kaleidoscope of coloured gemstones.
‘Are they real jewels?’ she gasped.
‘I don’t know. But they shine like they are. I think the gold must be real.’
In companionable silence they mused in wonder before sitting up and swinging their legs over the edge of the high bed.
‘What’s your name?’ the boy asked.
‘Detty.’ Odette surprised herself at revealing her family’s pet diminutive. ‘And yours?’
‘Dean. It’s not my real name. I have one of those stupid names.’
‘I like Dean.’
Odette sat up and put both hands around one of the carved posts to see if her fingers met. They didn’t.
‘This is pretty.’ She placed her feet on the delicate footstool and stepped onto the marble floor.
‘Do you want to see a secret?’
‘There’s more?’
The boy Dean jumped off the bed and slid the little footstool away from Odette’s feet. ‘Look in here. I found this by accident.’
The wooden footstool had claw feet and fat curved legs carved like the branches of a tree. In each corner grinned a monkey’s head. Embroidered flowers covered the padded top and in the centre of its front was a large pearl surrounded by seed pearls and garnets.
‘Golly,’ exclaimed Odette.
‘I was looking at the pearl, and see . . .’
He fingered it and pressed the pearl. The lid of the footstool flew open.
She gasped. It was lined with red velvet. A thick pile of papers were tied with a silver ribbon and beside them lay a small velvet drawstring pouch. Dean took out the pouch and handed it to Odette who opened it cautiously.
Inside was a small oblong grey stone and a tiny bottle. The bottle was inky blue glass, etched with flowers. The stopper was engraved silver in a delicate wreath of leaves and flowers. She unscrewed it and sniffed the empty bottle. ‘Roses. It must have had perfume in it.’
‘I looked at the papers, they look like the plans of the main house. Drawings and measurements and stuff. It’s really interesting.’
Odette was turning the small bottle over in her hands. She had never seen anything so exquisite.
‘What do you suppose this is?’ The boy fingered the grey stone.
‘I don’t know. I suppose we’d better put them back.’ Reluctantly she handed the bottle to Dean who rewrapped the stone in its cloth covering and put both items back in the soft pouch.
‘It might be bad luck to take them away.’
Odette nodded and glanced up at the window. Sundown was approaching. She knew she had to go home.
Dean walked with her back to the little jetty.
‘What is going to happen to this place? Who owns it?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. No one seems to know.’
‘Could I come again?’
‘I s’pose so. But don’t let my dad see you. No one is allowed to come here. Not even me.’
‘All right. I’ll see if I can borrow the dinghy next week. Friday after school.’
‘Okay. See you then.’ He watched her turn the boat back up the river before skittering through the gardens towards the caretaker’s cottage at the far end of the estate.
Odette rowed home, lost in a dream world, imagining herself living in such a wondrous house. At dinner that night she couldn’t contain herself and she blurted out her story of the incredible house on the river.
Her mother listened with a smile as she dished up the steak and kidney pie. ‘You and your stories, Detty! Such an imagination.’
‘It’s true, Mum! It’s a huge place. It’s got Zanana written on it.’
Her father pushed a good helping of peas into the mashed potato on his fork. ‘I’ve heard of that place. There’s a big private drive in off the main road near Cuddy’s place. But it’s kept locked up; you shouldn’t go in there, love. That’s trespassing y’know. You could get into trouble.’
‘If you’d had some sort of accident in there we wouldn’t have found you,’ added her mother, ruffling her hair. ‘Jewels in the roof indeed. I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, pet. Put it in one of the stories you’re always scribbling.’
Far from talking to his father about his afternoon, Dean was evasive about what he had been doing.
‘You haven’t finished your jobs either. I had to lock the chooks away.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’
They ate in silence for a few moments, and the father watched his son, thinking how much he looked like the mother the boy didn’t remember.
‘I hope you haven’t been over at the big house. You’ve been told about going there. I don’t want you near the place.’
‘But why, Dad?’
‘It’s got bad memories and no good has ever come of it. The sooner you can get away from here and make your own way in the world the better. You forget Zanana.’ He’d spoken more harshly than he intended for the boy stopped eating and looked at him with hurt eyes. ‘You go finish your schoolwork so you can get a smart job and look after your old man in his old age,’ he added gruffly.
The boy rose, clearing the plates from the table.
‘Off you go; I’ll do the dishes tonight. Finish your homework and you can listen to the radio serials.’
‘You beaut! Thanks, Dad.’ He scurried away whistling.
His father sat for a moment at the table then ran a hand across his eyes. ‘That bloody house,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Damn the lot of them.’
I
The Past — Kate
The Present — Odette
CHA
PTER ONE
Zanana 1899
The afternoon sun glinted on an upstairs windowpane, reflecting sturdy oaks and pine trees in the glass. The iridescent landscape rippled as a lace curtain fell back across the window.
‘What are you looking at, Catherine?’
‘The garden — I was thinking how nice it would be to see children playing there,’ sighed the young woman.
Robert Maclntyre put down his paper and went to his wife, slipping an arm around her tiny waist. ‘My dear, I understand how you feel. I would like children too. It will happen in good time.’ He placed a kiss lightly on her cheek.
She fiddled with the heavy lace panel across her flat and barren belly. ‘I feel I am letting you down, Robert. Maybe I should see Doctor Hampson again.’
‘There is no need, my sweet . . . unless you don’t feel well?
She smiled weakly at him. ‘No. I am quite well. Perhaps some tea. I’ll ring for Mrs Butterworth.’ She reached for the velvet tassle by the door and gave it a gentle tug.
In contrast to the formal though cosy upstairs sitting room, the kitchen below was a sprawling white room with a wall of high windows which looked towards the kitchen garden and servants’ dwellings. The floor was large squares of black and white quarried tiles. Massive cast-iron ovens, recently blacked and cleaned, lined one wall beside the wood-burning cooker and chimney alcove where meat hung to cure.
Three large wooden tables were used as working areas. Cupboards with small panes of coloured glass, holding functional crockery, were banked along one wall. All manner of cooking appliances and utensils, from iron pots and pans to the wooden butter churn, hung from the walls and were stacked neatly on bench tops.
A swinging door led into the pantry which was lined with shelves of food stores: crates of vegetables, earthenware crocks of pickles, bags of flour and sugar, large circular tins of imported coffee and tea, and rows of jars of home-made jams, jellies, chutneys and preserved fruit.
As the buzzer rang, the enamelled number fourteen flipped down into a wooden box with its rows of numbers with neatly printed room identification. Beneath fourteen was written Small Drawing Room.
Mrs Butterworth finished rolling pastry on the marble board at the centre table. ‘They’ll be wanting their tea. I’ll start getting it ready.’
Gladys Butterworth, a sturdy round woman just into her third decade, already had grey hairs showing in the curls which sprang from the coiled bun atop her head. Her cheeks were flushed with health and the heat from the fuel stove. Using both hands, she lifted the steaming iron kettle from the hob, wrapping a thick cloth around the hot handle to protect her fingers. Swiftly she untied her work apron and reached for the starched white pinafore edged in crocheted lace which hung by the door on a brass peg. Slipping it over her head, she tucked an unruly curl into her bun.
Her husband Harold washed his hands at the large enamel kitchen sink with the solyptol soap, dried them and smoothed his hair. He picked up his good dark jacket and put it on over his waistcoat as he helped his wife prepare the tea things. Harold was ruddy-faced and wiry with dark brown hair that was cropped close to his head, its severity softened by a wayward cowlick that sprouted from his crown.
Upstairs, Robert Maclntyre sighed. He was a handsome man with strong dark features and short muscular build. He was a man of action and achievement but in this instance he felt helpless. After three years of blissful marriage to his lovely Catherine, he too wanted children, and it made his heart ache to see her so sad and desolate. He was at a loss, as were the doctors, to understand why their happy marriage had not been blessed with a child.
They had so much to offer. They were deeply in love, their life was happy, Robert was a successful merchant of immense wealth, a self-made man who had created the ‘grandest house in Sydney’, as the Sydney Morning Herald had described Zanana. Robert sighed again and settled back into the deep leather club chair.
Discreetly and without fuss, Harold and Gladys Butterworth came into the room as dusk began to fade. Mrs Butterworth placed the silver Georgian tea service on the tea trolley and wheeled it before Catherine. Mr Butterworth drew the heavy wine-red drapes and turned on the electric lights, then stopped to light the fire already laid in the grate of the formal fireplace.
The glow of the firelight flickered on the flowers and birds of the hand-painted tiles surrounding the grate. Mr Butterworth straightened and returned the leather holder of wax matches to its place on the carved mantelpiece by the silver-framed photographs.
‘Thank you, Harold.’ Catherine handed Mrs Butterworth the flower sprigged Crown Derby porcelain cup. ‘Mrs Butterworth, would you give Mr Maclntyre his tea, please.’
Mrs Butterworth handed the dainty cup to Robert who gave her a small smile. Quietly she followed her husband from the room, closing the double cedar doors with their sparkling brass handles softly behind her.
Catherine placed her teacup on the small Hepplewhite table beside the brocade settee and picked up her needlepoint. Robert thoughtfully sipped his tea, staring into the flames as the small logs began to burn.
If it wasn’t for the occasional spectre of the ‘missing child’ in their lives, Robert reflected he couldn’t have been happier. Now in his forty-first year he had achieved even more than he had dreamed.
At nineteen Robert had sailed into Sydney from Scotland, landing in this raw new land with the princely sum of five pounds. His mother had died when he was a small boy; his father had been killed in a hunting accident while working as a forester on the estate of the Earl of Lorn. The Maclntyre clan were scattered and, apart from his father’s younger sister, there was no immediate family to claim the orphan. The Earl had seen to the last years of Robert’s education, then Robert had sold his father’s meagre possessions and with a small purse from the Earl, had travelled to Glasgow. There he had paid for his passage to Australia, the land of opportunity.
Robert quickly learned that in Sydneytown he was at the mercy of thieves and ruthless men willing to exploit a naive young lad fresh from the homeland. But Robert had the advantages of a good basic education and a shrewd brain, as well as a toughness and resilience, passed onto him by his clansmen who had survived for generations in harsh conditions.
Like many other hopefuls who were deserting the city for the promise of wealth, Robert headed for the New South Wales goldfields, to Wattle Flat outside the booming town of Hill End. But before staking his claim, the cautious young Scot talked to experienced miners who’d been in the district since the early days of the gold rush and through them learned as much as he could.
He soon realised he would need a partner to share the labour — and for safety. Miners guarded their claims closely because thefts were common and the task too much for one man. Someone had to work the windlass which hauled the buckets of ore from the shaft and one person could not do that and guard the mine at the same time.
Robert began looking about the goldfields, deciding where to stake his claim, though available unworked land was scarce. Thousands of hopeful men continued to stream into the Bathurst district with two pounds for a gold licence, a grubstake and dreams of easy riches.
Various communities had set up camps and claims in groups, bound by cultural or ethnic ties. Beyond the perimeter of the township, past the whiteman’s graveyard, was the Chinese camp. They were considered a strange breed of fellows with their funny clothes, pointed hats and long pigtails. They were regarded with suspicion and often hatred. Those Chinese not working claims ran the stores, gambling rooms, fantan parlours and opium dens, or provided practical services such as laundries and market gardens.
Feeling lonely and also somewhat curious, Robert had ventured into the smoky shadows of a lean-to shack behind Wing On’s Laundry to discover that here sloe-eyed women lethargically lifted their skirts and offered their bodies to any man who met their price. But the sights and sounds and smell had sickened him and he backed shyly away, knowing this was not the time or way to lose his virginity. The myste
ry of it all could wait.
In the back of his mind, Robert held on to a wispy image of a beautiful fair-haired girl, sweet-faced laughing children, and a grand house on the banks of a sweeping river. It was a vision that sprang from another world, of other people’s lives, glimpsed in books and imagined in dreams. He promised himself that what he hadn’t had, he would achieve and give to his own . . . one day.
Robert had walked past the Chinese camp several times and noticed a struggling vegetable garden tended by a Chinese boy who looked about his own age. This day as Robert approached he could see a crowd gathered about the market garden. A fight was in progress and he hurried forward. The Chinese boy seemed to be on the losing end of a row with a burly digger — a red-haired Irish lout whom Robert had seen brawling in several pubs. Vegetables had been pulled from the ground and the boy stumbled over a fat cabbage and fell. The Irishman flung himself on his smaller opponent with a yell of triumph.
‘What’s it all about?’ Robert asked the man beside him.
The exuberant bystander shrugged. ‘O’Mally reckons the Chink has buried gold with the vegetables.’
‘Whose gold?’
‘Aw, sonny, who cares — why ruin a good fight?’ He turned back to where O’Mally was pummelling the Chinese lad.
Robert lunged forward into the fray. He grabbed a shovel and banged it down hard upon the wild Irishman, stunning him and knocking him to the ground. The crowd roared and cheered. Rubbing his head, O’Mally looked up at the stocky young Scot brandishing the shovel.
‘You want to finish the fight, finish it with me,’ growled Robert.
The Irishman was tired and he quickly assessed Robert’s fitness and angry stance. ‘Ah, bugger it, mate, I got no fight with you.’ He scrambled to his feet and pointed a finger at the bruised and bloodied Chinese boy. ‘Next time I’ll dig up the whole bloody field and split your head wide open.’
As the crowd straggled behind O’Mally back towards town, Robert helped the boy to his feet. ‘You all right?’
‘How do I look?’
