by Di Morrissey
Her aunt was listening to the radio in the kitchen. ‘Odette? Where have you been? It’s nearly ten o’clock! Your dinner is in the oven, but it’s probably ruined.’
The next morning the town was buzzing with news of the fight. The popular version was that Hoskins and his mates went to ask for their money back over the sale of some bad horses and had been attacked by all the gypsies. Some said even the women had rushed at them.
Odette interviewed Hoskins, who was nursing a broken nose and split eye outside the pub. She listened as he told of being assaulted, unaware she’d been there and knew the real story. ‘Murderous bloody bunch,’ he concluded.
She talked to the local police sergeant who said he knew nothing at all about the fracas and admitted he’d never had any trouble from the gypsies before. Wise country policeman that he was, the sergeant only ever admitted knowing what it was best to know.
‘Aw, occasionally people complain about being “held up” on the road or something. But most people laugh about it.’
She talked to the local councillors, some of whom had tried to prohibit the gypsies from camping in the vicinity of the town but without success. With some gentle probing, the crusty mayor even admitted that he thought the gypsy lifestyle sounded romantic and that, yes, he wouldn’t mind trying it. ‘If the missus would let me off the hook for a bit,’ he chuckled.
Odette had her story. She told of the history and folklore of the gypsies, what had really happened the night of the fight, and how Hoskins had resold the horses which, strangely enough, had all escaped from their yard and hadn’t been seen since.
The following Friday morning she opened the Clarion and there, spread across the double page in the centre of the newspaper, was her story and Horrie’s photographs. TALES FROM THE GYPSY QUEEN — FACTS BEHIND THE MYTHS was the bold headline.
Underneath in smaller type that to Odette seemed as large as Mount Everest, were the words By Odette Barber.
From one of the pictures Zac’s handsome face smiled out at her.
II
Love Meets As Shadows Creep
CHAPTER NINE
Zanana 1916
It was spring and Zanana’s gardens were lush; green shoots, fat rosebuds, new tendrils of growth and burgeoning weeds fought happily in the warm sunshine and rich soil.
Mrs Butterworth, a cotton hat shading her perspiring face, straightened up and surveyed the small inroad she’d made amongst the weeds.
‘This is slow work. Look at the mountain I’ve pulled up, yet only a fraction of the bed is clear. It’s like a jungle.’
‘It’s spring, things are supposed to grow,’ said Kate who was busily pruning shrubs nearby.
‘I wonder what an English spring is like . . . gentle rain and soft colours where things grow slowly. Here we go crash bang from winter to summer and back again without any of those lingering in-between seasons you read about.’
‘Yes, when the leaves change colours in autumn and bare trees blossom in spring . . . well, this is as close as we get to spring. At least it’s not ninety degrees in the shade, Mum,’ laughed Kate.
Gladys Butterworth turned and smiled at the girl working beside her. Kate was fifteen and breathtakingly pretty. Mrs Butterworth never tired at looking at her golden-haired beauty. She had the fragile fairness of her mother’s hair and skin, but was far more robust than Catherine MacIntyre had been. Kate’s cheeks were pink, her sapphire eyes sparkled and her slim build radiated vitality.
‘Dad will have quite a bonfire when we finish all this.’
‘I don’t think we’re going to keep ahead of it, Kate. You can hear things growing! I wish we had more help about the place, but all the fit men have enlisted in the war, and that’s more important.’
‘Don’t overdo it, Mum. We can’t do everything. The gardens can wait till the war is over.’
‘Never. As long as I’m around, Zanana will not go to rack and ruin. I promised your parents that, and your dear mother loved this rose garden. I’m looking after you and I’m looking after her roses. They’ll be here long after I’m gone.’
Kate put down the shears and hugged her guardian mother. ‘You’re going to be around for a long time yet. But take it a bit easy. When I come of age you can sit back and just give the orders. I’m going to have masses of people to help run Zanana and we’ll give lots of parties and all the rooms will be opened up and used. You’ll see.’
Mrs Butterworth smiled at the girl she’d raised who had brought so much joy to her and Harold. Kate had been a happy and contented child who’d rarely challenged them. But she had a strong will of her own. They knew when Kate bit her bottom lip and stuck out her chin, she would gently fight to get her way.
‘You remind me of your father. You have that MacIntyre determination and dream big dreams.’
‘I thought I was more like the only mother I’ve ever known.’ Kate noticed suddenly how grey Mrs Butterworth’s hair had become. ‘How lucky I’ve been to have you both care for me and Zanana.’
Mr Butterworth clattered down the path pushing a wheelbarrow with a hoe and spade balanced across it. ‘You girls taking a rest? How about a cuppa?’
Sitting in the kitchen Harold and Gladys talked, as they did so often these days, about the war. Kate ate a lamington, licking the chocolate and coconut off the sponge cake, deep in thought.
‘Damned shame about Wheeler’s son. Been no news about his brother either. Not right that a man should send both sons off to war,’ said Harold.
‘Why are we in this war, Harold? It seems so far away from us.’
‘I’m blowed if I know, but we’re at war because we’re part of the Empire — you know that.’
‘Mother England seems a long way away,’ sniffed Mrs Butterworth. ‘I just hope it’s over soon.’
‘Let’s hope so. Well, I’d better get back to work seeing as we’re short of men about the place.’ He went back outside, a troubled man. He didn’t like to worry his wife, but he felt the war in Europe was far from over and its tentacles were reaching further afield, plucking more and more men from the towns and cities of Australia.
Kate was still deep in thought. She was staring at a shaft of sunlight where particles of dust glittered like tiny insects.
‘What are you thinking about, Kate? Don’t let Dad worry you with talk of the war.’
She swung around with a start. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking about the war. I was thinking about the past life of Zanana. I mean, I noticed the servants’ bells and I started thinking about how it must have been when my mother and father were alive. How you’ve told me about serving tea in the drawing room, the important people coming to visit.’
‘It was very grand . . . yes, they were special days. And how I’ve blessed the day your dear mother persuaded me and Harold to come and work here. But you know, Kate, those days are gone now. I don’t think they’ll come back in quite the same way. Even when you are mistress of Zanana, times — and people — change. You’ll bring life to this place in another way.’
‘It makes me sad to see it so closed up. The house seems . . . lonely. One day it will be full of laughter again.’
Kate’s reflections about the past disturbed Mrs Butterworth. Kate was becoming a young lady, but what was her future to be? If her parents were alive, plans would be made to launch her into society. Soon enough, suitors would be calling and what was Kate to do to fill in the time between her tutoring in academic and cultural pursuits and the day she married?
Thoughts of those past days when Zanana was filled with life and laughter when Catherine and Robert were alive, brought back memories of the energetic little Mary dashing about the place. How carefree that little girl had been before the birth of Kate and the death of Catherine and Robert.
Mrs Butterworth sighed. What a sad child Mary had turned out to be. Bitter more than sad, and not without reason, she supposed. It made her heart ache to think of the visits she and Harold had made to the school in Sydney to see her over the years
, and how they had been rejected.
Dutifully, Mary had gone to Hock Lee’s home for holiday outings, but she’d been reserved and polite, keeping her distance. When Harold and Gladys had visited her at the school, Mary had been withdrawn and sullen. Civil but remote, she answered questions about school, but never asked about Zanana; in fact, she seemed to prefer that her former home never be mentioned. Her face closed and her mouth set if little Kate was mentioned and Mrs Butterworth never referred to her after realising how painful it must be for the girl who’d been sent away while the other stayed.
Finally the headmistress at the school had gently suggested that Harold and Gladys curtail their visits for the time being as it seemed to distress Mary more than help her. It appeared to bring back the pain of what she’d lost and the guilt at what she’d done. ‘Allow a few years to pass. Till she is more mature. Then maybe the fences can be mended. Mary wants to make her own way in the world and being independent isn’t such a bad idea for a young lady in these troubled times.’
Gladys continued to write her simple letters but it was difficult to fill a page without talking about Zanana or Kate. The letters went unanswered and gradually Mrs Butterworth wrote less often, sending an occasional pretty card or small knitted gift, and a special letter each Christmas. Instead, she poured out her sadness into the journal she kept. Although her education had not been extensive, Mrs Butterworth kept a diary and her entries were neatly written. Sometimes she added a small amateurish sketch of the garden or a bird and saved Kate’s little drawings and a lock of her hair.
And although Hock Lee had seen that Mary wanted for nothing, using the stipend from Robert’s estate, the visits to his home also grew less frequent, Mary preferring to write occasional formal notes to him reporting on her progress at school. She did not wish to see Hock Lee and seemed intent on putting Zanana behind her.
In contrast Kate’s schooling and life was sheltered, protected and loving. Tutored by governesses and private teachers, she was chaperoned on the rare occasions she went away from the estate. But this limited lifestyle did not bother her — Kate’s life revolved around Zanana. Unlike Mary, her favourite outings were visits to Hock Lee. Kate adored her godfather and she turned to him for counsel and advice. She loved his sense of humour and philosophical wisdom drawn from his heritage. He was also the closest link she had with her real father, Robert MacIntyre.
When she was ten, Kate had been told about Mary. Kate felt deeply sad about the orphaned girl and wanted to meet her and be her friend. ‘We are almost sisters,’ she exclaimed to Mrs Butterworth. ‘Why can’t we be friends? That was all a long time ago. I was a baby, I don’t remember any of it. I don’t care.’
‘Mary is a bitter and sad girl,’ explained Mrs Butterworth. ‘She blames us all for her happiness being taken away and the change in her life. She has had a good education, and has some money from your parents’ estate. I just pray that she is finding her own way in the world and will make a new life of her own, have a family and find the happiness she deserves.’
Kate was still curious and sensed she hadn’t been told the full story. However, she stored this piece of family history away with the other information about her parents and Zanana.
The Butterworths, as her guardians, had talked to her about Robert and Catherine MacIntyre since she was a baby, so she was familiar with her real parents. But having only seen stiff and formal photographs of them, she couldn’t conjure up their personalities, their touch, their smell, the sound of their voices or laughter. They were part of Zanana, like the beautiful furniture, the exquisite grounds or little-used mansion. Kate felt estranged from her links with her immediate past.
The Butterworths lived downstairs in simple quarters, and Kate had only recently moved to one of the upstairs bedrooms. They ate their meals in the small sunroom off the kitchen or, in summer, on the rear terrace. The formal dining room where the Butterworths had waited upon the MacIntyres was never used. A parlour maid helped Mrs Butterworth to keep the house immaculate, dusting and airing the empty rooms each week. Harold, assisted by Sid Johnson, supervised the care of the grounds, the maintenance of the dairy, market garden, stables and the workers’ cottages.
The Johnsons’ son Ben, now seventeen, was also doing the work of a man around the estate. When the war had broken out and the able-bodied workers signed up, Ben had left school to help at Zanana. Sid and Nettie’s only child, he had curling brown hair, dark brown eyes and thick dark lashes mothers sighed over. He was tall and, while he still had the lankiness of youth, his shoulders and chest were broad and he radiated health and country strength. He had been born in Bangalow but his parents moved to Zanana to work for the MacIntyres when he was a toddler, and this estate was the only home he knew or remembered.
Ben, lopping off the overhanging branches of a tree, watched Kate from his shady eyrie. Walking past the rose arbour, her muslin dress sashed with a blue silk bow, her fair hair cascading down her back and shaded by a blue silk parasol, she could have been the inspiration for a French Impressionist painter. But to Ben she looked sweeter than the marble angel guarding the graves of her parents. He took particular care in trimming the grass and shrubs and rose bushes around the twin graves of Robert and Catherine and sometimes felt sad for Kate when he saw her walking alone through the gardens.
Kate turned towards the sunken garden, pausing to look at the sundial, then, closing her parasol, walked up the marble steps to the Indian House.
She didn’t come here often, though it was her favourite part of the estate. She pushed the door open, breathing deeply, inhaling the faint scent of sandalwood. The sunlight filtered through the intricate windows, sparkling and ricocheting off the myriad tiny mirrors.
She had only heard vague stories of how her father had built this miniature Indian palace for her mother after their honeymoon in India. She wished she knew more about them both, for she sensed there was something special about this place. This was no folly, no mere monument. It held secrets and she knew from what Mrs Butterworth had said, it had held a special place in her mother’s affections.
She sat in a carved ebony chair and felt the magic of this place take hold of her as it always did. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift. Soon her body seemed to rise and float. She felt transparent, nothing more than a fragment of light, and a feeling of incredible joy suffused her being. She was aware of haunting distant music, weird and eerie, but warming and caressing. The soft laughter of a woman blended with the music and the fragrance of roses overwhelmed her senses like a drug.
How long she floated, she didn’t know. But as the music and perfume faded, she opened her eyes, feeling at great peace. Kate always knew that if she had doubts or questions, the time of stillness spent in the Indian House would bring her a feeling of tranquillity, clear her head and solutions would come to her.
Kate was standing in the small tower room atop Zanana when she heard a horse cantering along the main drive. Curious, she went out onto the widow’s walk.
The rider was wearing a strange mixture of civilian and army clothes — army boots, thick khaki jacket and a soldier’s slouch hat. He dismounted but before he reached the front steps Harold Butterworth came around the corner, shouted and hurried forward to effusively shake the other man’s hand. Grinning, they slapped each other on the back and went indoors. As Kate hurried downstairs she heard him calling out, ‘Glad, Glad . . . look who’s here!’
Kate waited in the hall, listening to Mrs Butterworth’s delighted cries of surprise. Smiling shyly, Kate stepped into the kitchen. The man was taken aback at the sight of the elegant young girl, and leapt to his feet, smoothing his hair.
‘This is Katherine MacIntyre, our daughter,’ said Harold. ‘And this is Wally Simpson — from Bangalow up the north coast. We all grew up together.’
Wally laughed. ‘They were the days, eh, Harry? We were a pair of larrikins in the old days,’ he told Kate.
‘Steady on, Wal — they weren’t so long ago, y�
�know.’
‘That’s true — I’m still young enough to sign up,’ he chuckled. ‘Mind you, no one really quibbles provided you’ve got two straight feet, a reasonable ticker and decent eyesight. Enid my old lady thinks I’m mad, of course. Sends you her best, by the way.’
Mrs Butterworth put the teapot down on the table. ‘You’ve enlisted, Wal? To go . . . over there . . . and fight?’
‘That’s the general idea, Glad — give them Huns what for.’ He grew serious. ‘In fact, that’s why I’m here. It’s not just me, there’s a whole mob of us. I’m sort of the advance man and before we hit Sydney we need a bit of a rest up, a bit of tucker and whatnot. We’ve walked down, y’see.’
‘From Bangalow!’
‘Some blokes have come from even further north. And we picked up a lot along the way. We call ourselves the Bush Brigade.’
‘How many of you are there?’ asked Mrs Butterworth.
‘About two hundred at the last count, Gladys.’
‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ exclaimed Mr Butterworth.
Wally reached for one of the scones Kate was passing. ‘Yeah, well, a couple of us in town didn’t like the look of the way things were going over there. We were talking and finally some of the women from the Red Cross got us moving to do something. Told us to stop yakking about it and do it. They made a banner and hung it up — If you don’t go, we will! So ’struth, we decided to go to Sydney and sign up.’ Wally paused, biting into the light scone covered in home-made mulberry jam. ‘It’s been quite a trip. People are turning out along the way as the word goes from town to town. We march in the day and spend the night in a hall or church, sometimes in the open. The townspeople give us food and warm clothes, boots — whatever they can spare.’ Wally had become quite excited. ‘There’s a good spirit pulling for us out there. Least we can do is answer the call, eh, Harry?’
