The Lost Sapphire

by Belinda Murrell

  Marli paused for a moment, feeling awkward talking to her dad about her mother. ‘The local markets. Mum and I love rummaging through the second-hand stalls, finding bargains, like vintage clothes, or books, jewellery and knick-knacks. We have a pretty collection of antique cups and saucers that we’ve found over the years. Then we go out for brunch at our favourite café in Paddington for poached eggs and smashed avocado.’

  Dad’s face softened with nostalgia. ‘Yes, I remember the markets. Well, there’re some pretty cool vintage markets in Melbourne, too, you know. Maybe we can do a bit of rummaging ourselves.’ He put his chopsticks down and smiled. ‘It’s so good to see you, myshka.’

  The next morning Marli woke up to the sound of a coffee grinder. She sat up, disoriented, expecting to be at home in her own turquoise-and-white bedroom. But she realised she was in her dad’s spare bedroom instead, which doubled as his home office, with shelves of files, piles of architectural magazines, her father’s drawing board, computer and a pinboard covered with building plans and photographs.

  The smell of freshly ground coffee wafted through the open door, making her feel hungry. Through the window, she had a view over the red rooftops of trendy Richmond to the parkland by the river and beyond to the leafy gardens of Hawthorn. The grey clouds had gone, replaced by blue sky, but it was still cool. Marli showered and dressed in her torn jeans, sloppy jumper and black boots.

  She came out into the living room and looked around in the morning light. The apartment was very modern and sparse. Not at all like the charming, colourful clutter of the little timber cottage that she shared with Mum. There were arty black-and-white photographs that Dad had taken on the walls, a big flat-screen television and a small kitchen. The whole place was decorated like a spread in an architectural magazine – lots of black, white and grey. It looks like a stylish hotel, Marli decided.

  ‘Good morning, myshka,’ her dad said, standing at the stove with a spatula in one hand and a frypan in the other. The smell of sizzling butter filled the air. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Okay,’ replied Marli, taking a seat at the bench. She pulled out her phone and checked for messages. There was just one from her mum, wishing her a good morning. Marli decided not to reply just yet.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked Dad.

  Marli wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t drink coffee, but I’d love a cup of tea, please.’

  Dad raised his eyebrows in mock horror. ‘Sorry, all out of tea. We’ll get some this morning.’

  He poured batter in the hot pan, swished it around, then flipped it. ‘I’ve made pancakes, a special welcome breakfast.’

  Marli remembered that her dad often used to make her pancakes when she was younger, served with sour cream and berry jam. It was her favourite breakfast as a child. She hadn’t had them in years.

  ‘That’s nice, Dad,’ said Marli. ‘Do you have any muesli?’

  Dad looked down at the tottering pile of fluffy, brown pancakes. ‘No, I don’t,’ he replied. ‘But we’ll go to the shops later this morning and stock up on whatever you normally like to eat.’

  Marli bit her lip. She didn’t want to hurt her dad’s feelings – it just slipped out. She was still feeling grumpy and cross.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  The pancakes were as delicious as she remembered, but Marli pushed a forkful of pancake around her plate. She wondered what her friends were doing today back home. She imagined them all at the beach, laughing and splashing.

  ‘You don’t have to eat it,’ said Dad, taking away her plate and scraping the leftovers into the bin. ‘I’m a little out of practice. I usually just grab something on my way to work.’

  He stacked the dishes in the half-size dishwasher. Marli checked her phone again.

  ‘Are you ready to go?’ asked Dad in a cheery voice. ‘I spoke to Didi this morning, and he’s mad keen for us to get there.’

  2

  The Abandoned House

  It was a short drive from Dad’s apartment, across the Yarra River to Didi’s retirement unit in Hawthorn. After the bustling chaos of Richmond, it seemed serene and quiet in the back streets.

  Dad knocked on the door and then used his key to enter the apartment. Marli followed him into the room. Her grandfather was sitting in a wing-backed chair by the window, reading a letter.

  ‘Hello, Dad,’ said her father. ‘Look who I’ve brought to see you. It’s our gorgeous Marli-myshka.’

  As Didi struggled to his feet, Marli was surprised at how much frailer he looked from when she last saw him.

  Didi’s eyes misted up as he hugged her. ‘Let me look at you, Marli.’

  ‘Hello, Didi,’ Marli replied. ‘It’s great to see you.’

  ‘What a beautiful young lady you’ve become.’

  ‘Hasn’t she just?’ Dad said proudly. ‘And very clever, too. Your mother sent me a copy of your latest report, myshka. It’s great to see you’re doing so well.’

  Marli laughed despite herself. ‘Actually, Dad, I think most of my teachers said, “Marli is dreamy in class and could do better if she focused.”’

  Dad grinned. ‘Just what my reports always said. The sign of a highly creative mind.’

  Didi gazed at Marli as though memorising her features. ‘Well, she would be creative. It’s in her genes. You know, Marli, you have a very strong resemblance to my mother, Violet Hamilton Peterson. The same red-gold hair – although her eyes were green, not brown. I have a photo of her around here somewhere. She was exceptionally creative, like you and your father.’

  Marli vaguely remembered her grandfather mentioning this when she was younger.

  ‘I thought we’d go out to a café, Didi,’ suggested Dad.

  Didi assumed an air of great mystery. ‘First, I have a surprise to tell you about.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Marli.

  ‘I’ve received a rather interesting letter,’ he confided. ‘Perhaps you could fetch it for me, please, Marli. It’s there on my desk in the buff envelope.’

  Marli found the envelope and brought it over. Didi extracted the letter with a flourish, and the three of them sat at the round dining table.

  ‘It’s from Macdonald, Mackenzie and Blakeney – a firm of lawyers,’ Didi began.

  ‘What do they want?’ asked Dad.

  Didi paused, reading the letter, then grinned broadly. ‘It seems we have just inherited an abandoned house,’ he announced theatrically. ‘A grand old mansion, in fact.’

  Marli leaned forward – an abandoned mansion sounded very intriguing.

  Dad raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Whoever would have left you a house?’

  ‘Ms Blakeney has been a little sketchy, but it’s the house where my mother, Violet, grew up, right here in Hawthorn on the banks of the Yarra,’ explained Didi. ‘It was called Riversleigh.’

  The name sent a little shiver up Marli’s spine. Riversleigh. Didi handed the letter to Dad, who quickly scanned it.

  ‘Mmm. Nanna came from quite a wealthy family, if I remember correctly,’ Dad said. ‘Didn’t she have some kind of tragic childhood?’

  ‘She did, but Mum wouldn’t talk about it very much,’ replied Didi. ‘There was some kind of falling out with her father. Albert didn’t approve of her marriage to my father, and she was effectively disinherited.’

  Dad stroked Marli’s cheek. ‘It’s hard to believe that a parent would disown his daughter.’

  ‘My grandfather was very traditional, like many of his generation.’ Didi shook his head. ‘He truly believed that duty to king, country and family came before personal happiness. My mother was expected to make a brilliant society match rather than follow her heart.’

  ‘You mean marry for money rather than love?’ Marli asked with dismay. ‘That’s crazy.’

  Didi nodded. ‘Many people felt that way before the wars. Anyway, Albert lost all his money and the house was given away to the government on a ninety-year lease. But now the house is empty and run-down. The government doesn’t want the bother o
f it anymore, so the house is to revert back to the family early.’

  ‘Can we go and see it?’ asked Marli. ‘It sounds exciting.’

  ‘Of course we can. I thought perhaps we could go on an excursion this morning. That’s if your poor father doesn’t have to rush off to work.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday,’ Marli replied.

  ‘Yes,’ said Didi with a twinkle in his eye, ‘but your Dad’s boss, Tony, has a habit of ringing constantly with dire emergencies, so your father seems to work six or seven days a week most of the time. But perhaps today will be an exception.’

  Dad held up his hands in surrender. ‘I wouldn’t dare go to work and deprive us of a family excursion. In fact, I’m fascinated too.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ replied Didi.

  Riversleigh Grove was a wide, curving street lined with mature oak trees, forming a leafy-green tunnel overhead. On either side of the road were grand heritage houses with tall fences and lush gardens. Dad drove, with Didi in the front passenger seat, leaning forward to check the house numbers. Marli sat in the back.

  ‘Originally, in the 1880s, none of these houses were here, and this road was the driveway,’ explained Didi. ‘In the days of my great-grandfather, that little cottage was the gatehouse to the estate.’

  Marli stared at the quaint gingerbread cottage they were passing, with its steep-pitched roof.

  ‘There it is,’ Didi said, pointing. ‘Riversleigh.’

  Dad pulled up and parked the car on the opposite side of the road. They all looked across to where a high, stone wall surrounded the property. A pair of ornate wrought-iron gates had been covered by a metal mesh barricade. A large sign read Keep Out. Behind the wall, Marli could see the tops of gnarled old trees – oaks, elms, conifers and magnolias with ivory flowers.

  A thin boy with dark hair was ambling past the gate, his hands in the pockets of his black jeans, headphones on. A grey cat came to greet him, winding around his legs, arching her back to be patted. The boy scooped the cat up in his arms and stared curiously at Marli and her family in the car before glancing away. He turned into the neighbouring driveway and disappeared.

  ‘It’s looking rather forlorn,’ said Dad, frowning.

  ‘The house has been abandoned for nearly ten years,’ Didi explained. ‘I think at one stage squatters were living there. Before that it was a nursing home, a school and a convalescent home for soldiers during the Second World War. It’s nearly ninety years since the Hamilton family lived here.’

  They all climbed out of the car and walked towards the barricaded and padlocked gate. Through the bars, they could see extensive overgrown gardens with waist-high grass and thick weeds. A circular bitumen driveway surrounded a broken marble fountain. Behind that was the two-storey house.

  It must have been beautiful once: cream-coloured with graceful arches across the upper and lower loggias, arched windows in the rounded bays. On the left-hand side was a three-storey square tower with a rooftop terrace enclosed by a balustrade. Yet closer inspection showed dirty, peeling paint, boarded-up windows and cracked glass.

  ‘It’s a bit of a dump,’ said Marli, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘But you can see how grand it once was,’ said Dad. ‘The Italianate style of architecture was very popular in the late nineteenth century. Many wealthy families built these huge, extravagant mansions in the boom years after the gold rush to demonstrate their prosperity.’

  ‘That’s why they called it Marvellous Melbourne,’ Didi added. ‘There were lots more of these grand mansions around all over the city when I was young. But so many of them have been demolished for development in the last fifty years.’

  ‘Can we go in and have a look around?’ Marli asked. She pressed her face against the mesh barricade to get a closer look.

  Didi shook his head. ‘We won’t get access for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Perhaps we can find a way into the garden,’ Marli said.

  Dad peered through the gate. ‘It looks like the wall completely surrounds the property. I’ll ask the lawyer if we can get early access. We’ll have to decide what we’re going to do with it.’

  Didi stared dreamily at the mansion. ‘My mother said that when she was a girl her family owned all the land along the banks of the Yarra River here. The land was gradually subdivided during the early twentieth century.’

  ‘They must have been very rich,’ said Marli. ‘Did you ever visit the house when you were young, Didi?’

  ‘No, the house was turned over to the state government before I was born,’ Didi said. ‘I remember my mother bringing me here a couple of times when it was a soldier’s convalescent hospital. We walked around the gardens, and there were lots of soldiers in wheelchairs.’

  Didi turned to Marli. ‘I think it made her quite sad coming back here – too many painful memories.’

  ‘It’s a large block of land,’ Dad said. ‘It would be worth a lot of money to a developer. We could build a dozen townhouses, or a multi-storey block of ultra-modern apartments.’ Dad gazed up, visualising the development he would design.

  ‘I’d hate to see Riversleigh demolished,’ said Didi. ‘The house was built by my great-grandfather back in the 1880s. That makes him your great-great-great-grandfather, Marli.’

  ‘But Marli’s right – the house is pretty derelict,’ Dad said. ‘It would take a lot of hard work to restore it.’

  Didi shook his head. ‘So much history is being lost.’

  Marli’s phone beeped as a message came in. She eagerly grabbed it from her pocket, hoping the text might be from one of her friends with news of what they were all doing. But instead it was Mum, saying she was boarding her plane and would phone once she got to England. Marli thought about replying but decided she was still too annoyed. She’d answer later.

  A flash of colour caught her eye. It was a small bird with vibrant bands of blue, brown and black plumage. It darted above her head and sat for a moment on top of the wall, examining her with bright, beady eyes. It chirruped a song then hopped over the wall into the wilderness of the overgrown garden.

  ‘A fairy wren,’ Didi said. ‘The males are so pretty with that bright blue colouring.’

  Marli scuffed the toe of her boot on the footpath. The old abandoned house made her feel sad. It looked so forgotten, so unloved.

  ‘Should we go now?’ Marli asked. ‘There’s not much to see if we can’t go in.’

  Didi looked disappointed.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Dad replied. ‘I thought we could go up to Burwood Road. There’s a little café there that serves a great brunch. Marli, you must be starving.’

  Sunday was grey and drizzly, so Marli and Dad had caught a tram into the city centre and wandered around, getting thoroughly drenched. Dad bought her a black jacket with a hood to keep her warm and dry. They ate souvlaki in Lonsdale Street, took photographs of the graffiti art in the laneways, then came home to watch an old movie.

  On Monday morning, Marli slept in late and woke to find that Dad had already gone to work. There was a note written in his neat architect’s handwriting:

  Good morning, myshka. Hope you slept well. Food in fridge. Keys on bench. Bike in garage if you want it. I’ll be home early. Promise! Ring if you need me. Love, Dad xx

  Marli took a photo of herself crashed back on the sofa, pulling a funny face, and sent it to her friends.

  Nice pad. Having an AWESOME time in Melbourne all by myself. Miss you guys. xxx

  She made herself some breakfast, cleaned up, had long phone conversations with Evie and Tess, then read her book. After a couple of hours, she put the book down and wandered restlessly from perfect room to perfect room. I could watch a movie, Marli thought, noting the neat row of DVDs stored in the cupboard under the television, but nothing took her fancy.

  Marli went out onto the balcony and looked out at the view. In the distance to the west were the tall, silver skyscrapers of the city centre, glittering in the sun. To the east was the river, with parkland and walking p
aths wending along beside it. Cyclists raced past, overtaking mothers pushing prams and couples walking dogs.

  I have to get out or I’ll go mad with boredom, thought Marli. How on earth am I going to survive two months living down here?

  She packed her backpack with a bottle of water, an apple, her book and phone, then grabbed the keys from the bench.

  In a few minutes she had a helmet on and was off cycling, winding her way through the busy Richmond roads towards the river. Marli felt so much better when she was out doing something. It was peaceful riding the bike along the main trail through the picturesque parkland beside the river. Sunlight glimmered through the leaves, dappling the ground and glinting off the water. Marli crossed over a bridge and followed her nose through the quiet streets of Hawthorn.

  It wasn’t until she found herself cruising down Riversleigh Grove towards the wrought-iron gates that Marli realised where she was heading. She padlocked the bike to a telegraph pole, grabbed her backpack and set off to explore. The old house and its high-walled garden had captured her imagination. There must be some way of getting in.

  Next door to the walls of the property on the southern side was a small block of Art Deco apartments with a low brick fence across the front. Looking down the driveway, she could see the stone wall of Riversleigh stretching towards the river. On the northern side was a large Federation house. An old man was pottering in the garden and waved to her as she hovered.

  A trilling warble sounded. The cheerful fairy wren, with his iridescent blue bands, was back. He swooped down over Marli’s head, then alighted on top of the wall. The bird danced along, cocking his head from side to side, observing Marli. He trilled again, then flew off into the garden beyond, as though enticing Marli to follow. This made her even more determined to find a way in.

  On her second prowl, Marli peered into the garden of the block of flats. The fairy wren appeared again, skimming over her head, then alighted on a branch of a tree growing beside the wall. He watched Marli with his bright, beady eyes, then hopped from the branch onto the wall. He cocked his head to the side and flitted down into the garden.