The Opal Dragonfly

by Julian Leatherdale

  Memories burst upon Isobel like sunlight breaking through clouds. As if it was only yesterday, she recalled her first day at Rosemount as a child of ten. Her family’s coach and retinue of wagons were pulled up in the carriageway outside the house. As their trunks and furniture were unloaded, her parents prepared to enter their new home. Little Isobel headed off in the direction of the garden. ‘don’t get lost!’ Winnie cried after her.

  ‘All the paths are signposted, Mama!’ she called back, though in fact she rather hoped to get lost, at least for a little while, in this vast Edenic garden. As she wandered in solitary and happy contemplation along its many forking pathways, Isobel arrived at last, just as she had today, at the quiet oasis of the carp ponds. Only to find she was not alone.

  A woman in a blue sashed muslin dress and ribboned bonnet stood with her back to Isobel, facing the harbour. She started when she heard the girl behind her and turned to look at the intruder. This woman was at least twenty years Isobel’s senior, her face plain but thoughtful and intelligent. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here so soon,’ said the stranger, picking up a basket of flowers she had been collecting from the garden, and making to leave.

  ‘Please don’t hurry away,’ said Isobel.

  Before they had time to make introductions, Isobel heard a deep drone, oddly mechanical and much louder than the low buzzing of a bee or wasp. A huge insect appeared out of nowhere and hung in the air only inches from her face. It was a dragonfly, bigger than any she had yet seen. She flinched involuntarily, startled by its size and noise.

  ‘don’t worry, she won’t hurt you,’ said the woman.

  As if it recognised the stranger, or so Isobel fancied, the dragonfly zigzagged across the green mirror of the pond and landed on the woman’s left sleeve. It hung there sparkling in the sun, an exotic jewelled pendant. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ the woman said, beckoning to Isobel. ‘Come, take a closer look.’

  Isobel approached a little nervously.

  ‘She’s a Giant dragonfly. First described and named by the zoologist William Leach from a specimen my father presented to the Linnean Society in London.’ The woman smiled at Isobel.

  So this was one of Mr Macleay’s daughters! Probably Fanny, who was known as a talented botanical artist. Isobel had seen and admired one of her dutch still-life paintings of Australian natives and exotics mingled in a stone amphora; the work had been exhibited at the Female School of Industry just that year. Fanny was said to be a great help to her father, preparing and cataloguing his large collections and preserving and packing specimens to be shipped to naturalists in England.

  Thinking back on the meeting now, years later, Isobel felt a pang of guilt at the thought that she had disturbed Fanny on her last walk through her father’s gardens, no doubt to imprint all its riches on her mind as well as gather a few cuttings to be pressed as mementos.

  The little girl and the older woman fell unselfconsciously into conversation, dispensing with the formalities of introductions. Fanny told Isobel the proper name for the jewelled insect that clung to her dress: Petalura gigantea, named for the petal-shaped appendage at the tip of the male’s abdomen. She told Isobel about the insect’s life journey from underwater egg to larva to nymph. She described how the ungainly nymph emerged from its murky pond water, clambering up a reed or rock and bursting from its casing into a full-grown adult. At this point of transformation into a creature of breathtaking agility and beauty, the insect was also at its most vulnerable.

  ‘Waiting for her wings to dry, a female dragonfly sits on her slender reed or exposed rock, trapped, a tempting meal for every bird or frog,’ said Fanny, her eyes glittering with an amused menace. ‘It is not so different for us human females, is it? As young women, we come out into society, ready to spread our wings, and we are instantly prey to every suitor who fancies he is eligible, waiting to pounce and gobble us up in the jaws of matrimony.’

  Isobel could not help giggling and Fanny’s face lit up with laughter. Only later did Isobel learn that Fanny’s mother had, years before, insisted she turn down a proposal from a much older man, a noted English naturalist. Fanny had refused all offers since; the gossips of Sydney had labelled Mr Macleay’s bookish daughter ‘forward’ and ‘queer’.

  She was certainly ‘different’, thought Isobel, and so wonderfully frank. With no hint of shame or apology, Fanny described the mating ritual of the dragonfly and his female, locked together in tandem flight, their bodies arched in coitus in the shape of a heart. ‘Ah, the romance of dragonfly sex! It is far too little appreciated,’ she observed with a grin.

  Isobel felt her cheek burning and hoped she was not blushing. Why, this was no more than scientific knowledge. What reason had she, or any woman, to feel ashamed?

  ‘do you know Mr Tennyson’s poem about a dragonfly?’ asked Fanny. Isobel shook her head. ‘It is written about a male—of course!—but I shall change it to a female in honour of our beautiful friend.’ Fanny cleared her throat.

  ‘Today I saw the dragon-fly

  Come from the wells where she did lie.

  An inner impulse rent the veil

  Of her old husk: from head to tail

  Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

  She dried her wings: like gauze they grew;

  Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew

  A living flash of light she flew.’

  Isobel sighed. ‘How lovely!’

  Fanny nodded. ‘Yes, isn’t it? The poem teaches us how we must be prepared to lose our old selves—our husks—to undergo change, no matter how risky or dangerous, so we can discover our true natures. And fly like a “living flash of light”!’

  Fanny’s eyes sparkled as if in sympathy with this thought. Her gaze lingered tenderly a moment on Isobel’s face. What was she thinking? Isobel wondered. did Isobel remind her of a younger, more innocent version of herself whom she had discarded? And what had this cost her? What would it cost Isobel to discover her ‘true nature’ when the time came?

  They both heard voices nearby. ‘Isobel! Lunchtime!’ The dragonfly’s wings became a shiny blur and the giant insect took to the air and vanished in a blink. Fanny’s smile evaporated instantly. She touched Isobel lightly on the arm by way of farewell.

  ‘I must go. My brother is expecting me. I wish you every happiness here at Rosemount. It has enough wonders to satisfy even the most restless curiosity.’

  Fanny ducked her head, grabbed her basket of flowers and, without another word, disappeared into the bushes. This abrupt cessation of the women’s discourse left Isobel feeling bereft. And guilty. There was no escaping the fact that the new, exciting life promised for her at Rosemount was only made possible with the termination of Fanny’s life here.

  And now, seven years later, here Isobel was, about to become an exile herself from this paradise just like Fanny before her. This strange parallel even included her encounter with a dragonfly that came into the garden to bid them both farewell. Isobel’s heart was filled with poignant melancholy. It was as if the insect acknowledged her as a fellow inhabitant of the gardens, her stay here as transitory as its own, too soon to depart.

  And, of course, Isobel could not help thinking of her mother’s gift, Isobel’s mysterious inheritance. She recalled Fanny’s father, poor Mr Macleay, stooped under the weight of his ill fortune, his face etched with self-pity at the sight of Winnie’s opal brooch. That same night of her parents’ anniversary ball and her own cruel father’s triumph, little Isobel had understood, if only fleetingly, the two-faced nature of fate. One man’s victory meant another man’s defeat. From Mr Macleay’s ruin had sprung the Macleods’ good fortune.

  She was not ready to return to the house just yet.

  Her father had gone back to work at the Surveyor-General’s office in Sydney a few days ago, ignoring the muttering behind his back about the ‘disgraceful’ duel. Isobel’s only company now was Grace and Anna, both unashamedly cheerful at the prospect of her departure. Her sisters c
ould now enjoy absolute rule over Rosemount, though Isobel could not imagine what would give them as much pleasure as finding fault with their little sister.

  Father had reassured Isobel that she would not miss out on the society of her friends. But she feared that Aunt Louisa would keep her too busy with good works to attend parties or balls, assuming any such invitation penetrated the citadel of Faulconstone. With her mother’s death just over a year ago, Isobel, now seventeen, had not yet had the opportunity to formally come out at a ball. The official twelvemonth of mourning had precluded such gaiety and her mother’s absence now meant she had no one to present her.

  The season was not quite over so Isobel had reason still to hope that she would be welcomed at one of the later spring debutante balls. But these hopes were dashed again and again as the weeks passed by and the awful truth dawned on the Macleod women that they were being spurned by their friends and acquaintances. No calling cards were left in the hall, no invitations arrived by mail. Grace and Anna called on the Dickersons and the Bradleys but nobody was ever home to receive them and their cards elicited notes of apology. Dr Finch was their only guest in his capacity as their father’s doctor and he did not stay long.

  Grace and Anna were mortified by this chilly ostracism and took every opportunity to remind poor Isobel that it was all her doing. The only explanation, in their view, was that no family would risk their respectability by letting such a headstrong and ill-behaved woman as Isobel into their midst. The lacerating sting of wounded pride deepened to anger and resentment as the third week rolled by.

  And then something unexpected happened. Invitations arrived for all three Macleod women to attend a ball to be hosted by Mr and Mrs Robert Cooper at Juniper Hall, the fine Georgian mansion on the high point of the ridgeline in Paddington. It was to be a debutante ball for their eldest daughter, Catherine, and would include among its guests many of the officers of the 11th Regiment just down the road at Victoria Barracks. The invitation made clear that it could provide Isobel with the perfect opportunity for her formal entrée into society, if she so wished. This was a generous offer. But it was also tricky territory.

  The problem, as Isobel knew all too well, was that Mr Cooper was an emancipist. Unlike the usual run of poor, brutish convicts transported to New South Wales, Mr Cooper had been a well-off owner of two gin distilleries in London, convicted for receiving three thousand pounds’ worth of stolen silk and ostrich feathers. Having served his time and now a free man once more in the colony, Mr Cooper had amassed a substantial fortune with investments in a gin and beer distillery at Blackwattle Bay, a timber mill, a textile mill and a gunpowder factory.

  Affectionately known as ‘Robert the Large’, this stout, affable gent had sired twenty-eight children and jokingly called himself ‘a founding father of the colony’. He courted his third (much younger) wife, Jane, with a promise of building her the ‘finest house’ in Sydney. For some years, Juniper Hall easily retained that title, with its elegant cedar-floored rooms, its entrance surmounted by a large fanlight and flanked by Ionic columns, and its upper-storey balcony commanding views over Rushcutters Bay, Botany Bay and as far west as the Blue Mountains. Isobel’s father had remarked (a touch acidly) on Mr Cooper’s ambitions, ‘which knew no bounds’. Standing for the first election to the Legislative Council in 1843, Mr Cooper had upset the colony’s ruling class by promising to champion the rights of the discontented workers and unemployed of Sydney. He even gave land grants to forty of his distillery workers and built them cottages so they were qualified to vote for him. His political ambitions were roundly flouted at the elections but he had endeared himself to the exploited masses of Sydney.

  Sir Angus had always made clear his unflattering view of emancipists; he had even chosen to pay a hefty fine rather than serve on a jury alongside one of them. He was ready to praise the best of the convicts he recruited for his expeditions and rewarded them with tickets of leave or pardons and certificates of freedom. But, with few exceptions, the Major viewed convicts and ex-convicts as depraved, sinful creatures, permanently stained by their moral failings and criminal history. On the other hand, his contempt for the nepotism and self-interest of the landed gentry (the Macarthurs, Icelys, Marshes and their ilk) inclined him to look favourably on the honest ambition of free settlers and, yes, even emancipists who sought to make themselves men of consequence through dint of hard work and intelligence.

  The Major conceded Robert Cooper was such a man.

  Maybe it was because the Major was furious at the petty snobbishness of his family’s ostracism and viewed this invitation as an opportunity to express his displeasure; whatever his motivation, he gave permission for his daughters to attend Mr Cooper’s ball. Isobel was so excited. Her debut was to be at a fancy-dress ball attended by garrison officers and (it was rumoured) by Governor FitzRoy himself, despite his unpopularity with everyone in the colony, squatters and city men alike. Aunt Louisa agreed to chaperone and the hostess, Mrs Cooper, agreed to introduce Isobel into society in her mother’s absence.

  With these novel thoughts drifting through her mind, Isobel wandered from the carp ponds, past the kitchen gardens, past the glasshouses, past the vineyard all decked in its best spring livery, and past the potting sheds and poultry yards. The path took her upwards into the wood on the northern side of the estate that bordered the serpentine carriageway to the front gates. Isobel strolled beneath the silver-green canopy of the native trees—eucalypts, turpentines, tallowwoods and feathery she-oaks—smothered in blossoms of white, pink, red and yellow. Elkhorn, bird’s nest and staghorn ferns adorned tree trunks with their vivid green vegetable antlers, while fiddleheads and maidenhairs caught the sunlight in the baroque lacework of their leaves. Flights of rosellas, crested pigeons and blue wrens went chinking, whirring and fluttering overhead, causing branches to nod at their passing and let loose snowfalls of blossom. The air was heavy with a syrup of fragrances, so sweet and strong and intoxicating that Isobel tarried, sitting on a nearby rustic bench to savour it all.

  All about her the undergrowth was dotted with orchids, each with their fleshy star of petals and their engorged tongues in such bright throats. These shameless displays of stigmata, labellum and cap were so lurid that Isobel blushed with forbidden pleasure. Like all cultured young women, she had read Mr Henry Phillips’ Floral Emblems among other floral dictionaries. She understood very well the wordless poetry of orchids. In men they inspired an obsessive lust for rarity and status, both the ruthless orchid hunter who risked his life in remote jungles and the avaricious collector who paid huge bounties. For women they were Nature’s own sonnets to female beauty and erotic allure, sotto voce confessions of passionate and irresistible desire.

  With a violent flutter in her breast, Isobel recalled her young suitor, Captain Tranter, and the single purple orchid pressed between the pages of his love letter to her, tantamount to a marriage proposal. As dusk embronzed the drawing room at Rosemount, she had sat with Alice and shared the secrets of her heart. Brave Alice had championed the captain’s love suit to their mother in vain. Winifred had brought the affair to a swift end before it had begun. Isobel sighed as she recalled her captain’s sweet face.

  Now, here she was, seventeen years old and about to be exiled to her aunt’s like a scarlet woman being shut up in a nunnery to smother her shame. Was she so fallen, so beyond redemption? Surely not. Like Mr Cooper and his fellow emancipists, Isobel hoped that she deserved a second chance. Was her crime so great as to exclude that possibility? No.

  And where was Captain Tranter now? she wondered. He had vanished from her life and her family’s social sphere faster than a dragonfly in flight, never to be seen again. There had been one last clandestine note delivered from the Captain to Isobel as a postscript to their romance, expressing his deep regret at how the episode had ended but giving his word as a gentleman to withdraw discreetly. Isobel’s heart had been crushed by this kind officer’s brave surrender to her family’s demands; he would never know
the depths of her affections and she would never have the opportunity to express them.

  She looked at the carpet of orchids all about her. Would she ever find such a love again? Or would she become a spinster like her heartless sister Grace and her mad sister Anna whom no man with any sense would ever take for a wife?

  She had heard that dear Fanny Macleay, now approaching forty, was still unwed, leaving her plenty of time to sketch and paint when she was not attending to her aged parents and the demands of her sisters’ children.

  Was this to be Isobel’s fate?

  Chapter 13

  UNEXPECTED VISITORS

  Isobel sat in the dappled shade and worked at her easel. The sun slid westward and she noted how the lacework of bright rays and purple shadows shifted across the lovely scene. Her attention was absorbed in the graceful individuality of each orchid she painted, trying to let her mind quieten its busy treadmill of thoughts and soak up colour and light like a sponge. As she worked, something snagged at the corner of her field of vision. A darker shadow, moving between the trees. Was it a visitor, someone lost?

  ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ she called out, feeling a little foolish.

  She was sure she heard footsteps in the undergrowth, saw an indistinct shape slipping away into the forest. Perhaps it was a wallaby, a wombat, not a person at all. Or was her mind playing tricks on her?

  She started at the sudden thunder of carriage wheels in the drive and the clatter of hooves on gravel as a vehicle rattled past, heading down the carriage loop to the house. A carriage at this time of day? Papa was not due home until at least six o’clock. No cards had been left at the house and no guests were expected. Isobel wanted to remain here, unseen in the peaceful sanctuary of the woodland, but her curiosity impelled her to investigate. As she quickly retraced her steps through the forest and across the lawn, she could see a trap pulled up in the driveway near the house and two gentlemen, already alighted, taking in views of the estate. As she crested the slope and drew closer, she recognised her brothers. What sweet joy flooded her heart then, what tender affection! It had been an age since she had laid eyes on either of these beloved souls.