Ghost Gum Valley

by Johanna Nicholls

  The man turned his head revealing the old duelling scar on his cheek.

  Now as Marmaduke looked across at the masked girl watching him intently, he selected his words with care.

  ‘Klaus von Starbold was my tutor. He raped my mother,’ he said without emotion.

  ‘I had two choices. I was my mother’s witness. I could have him charged with rape and see him hanged. Or meet him on the duelling field to avenge mother’s honour. Von Starbold vowed that if he survived he would leave the Colony never to return. He told me this choice was my test of manhood. Would I see my mother’s good name dragged through the court and lampooned in the Colony? Or face him on the duelling field?’

  Isabel was wide-eyed but silent.

  ‘Next morning at dawn I faced von Starbold on the cricket pitch out of sight of the house. My tutor was so damned correct he continued to give me instructions in the duelling code. At the count of twenty we turned. I fired first and shot von Starbold in the stomach. He looked at me in surprise. Aimed the pistol directly at my head to make me sweat. Then deliberately fired his pistol into the ground.’

  Isabel gasped. ‘He never intended to kill you. What happened to him?’

  ‘A bullet wound in the gut is fatal. He asked me to stand by him so he wouldn’t die alone. I told him I would stay to watch him die. He gave me an odd smile and said, “I taught you well. Next time we meet aim at my heart, it’s quicker that way.” I saw his eyes glaze over. The last words he said were, “You were right to protect your mother against me. I’m proud of you, young man.”’

  Marmaduke felt drained but aware that Isabel was watching him intently. He took the snuff case from his pocket and inhaled a pinch to cover the fact his hands were shaking.

  ‘He died in Queenie’s cabin a few hours later. Edwin Bentleigh, my then barrister and now my friend, succeeded in getting the military jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty. The true reason for the duel was concealed to protect Mother’s name. But it probably helped my case that my Emancipist father was the second wealthiest man in the Colony. Men in high places were in his pocket. Perhaps some sat on the jury, who knows?’

  ‘Your mother must have been proud of you.’

  ‘She never spoke of it again. She died some months later. The truth is, Isabel, I marched on to that duelling field with murder in my heart. I had every intention of killing him. Do you understand? I really was guilty of murder!’

  Isabel was breathing so heavily he wondered if she was about to faint. Marmaduke was totally unprepared for what came next.

  Her voice cracked with the strain of her words, ‘So am I!’

  Marmaduke was so surprised he actually laughed. He crossed the room to pat her shoulder as if to reassure a wayward child that all was forgiven.

  ‘My dear Isabel, if you are so intent on breaking our engagement, you have only to say so. I am more than ready to compensate you for your journey and place you on the next ship bound for Home. You don’t need to outrank me in villainy.’

  Isabel stammered out the words. ‘I am far worse than you. I never stood trial. My family succeeded in concealing my crime – murder.’

  Intrigued, Marmaduke drew a chair close to her side. ‘A man?’ he prompted.

  She shook her head. ‘I wish it had been. Then I would feel no guilt. No. I have a medical condition. Sleepwalking. In that state I can’t remember what I’ve done or where I’ve been.’ She was blushing. ‘When I was thirteen I had not yet become a woman. You understand?’

  ‘Menstruation is a simple fact of life, Isabel, no need to shy from the word.’

  ‘I can’t believe you said that out loud! No one in polite society dares speak of it.’

  ‘You’re not in polite society. You’re with me – an Australian.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget that,’ she said angrily. ‘Look, this might be amusing to you, but it is very painful for me.’

  Marmaduke quickly assured her, ‘I’m truly sorry. Please continue.’

  ‘My sleepwalking grew worse. I disappeared for seven days. They found me wandering in the woods – without any memory of the time lapse. On my return I was kept under lock and key. Too late.’ The words came in a rush. ‘I had never bled so I did not realise until months later. I was with child.’

  Marmaduke reached for the champagne. Jesus Christ, what’s coming next?

  ‘My guardian said I was not responsible for my sleepwalking illness, but I must be kept closely confined to conceal the truth. I discovered their plan. The babe was to be placed in an orphan asylum in Scotland, never to be seen again.’

  Marmaduke knelt beside her chair. ‘My God, what you’ve been through.’

  ‘The birthing came early. I escaped from the servant who guarded me. Ran off into the woods where the gypsy travellers camped every spring. There was an old Romani healer famous for her herbal remedies. I begged her to help me. She delivered the babe. Next morning I left her camp to avoid bringing trouble down on her head from my family.’

  Marmaduke chafed her hands to warm them. He said gently, ‘Please go on.’

  ‘Cousin Silas found me wandering in the grounds of our estate. I shall never forget the look on his face when I confessed I’d smothered the babe. Buried its body in the woods.’ Isabel added defiantly, ‘I told him it was better off dead!’

  Her voice was bleak with despair. ‘The bible tells us “the truth will set you free”. It never does. My crime of infanticide will haunt me the rest of my life.’

  Marmaduke reached out to touch her but she pulled away from his hand.

  She added coolly, ‘So, now you are free. What are you waiting for? Go ahead. Break our engagement. I can’t sue you for breach of promise. I can never return to England. I’ll never marry. What man wants a wife who murdered her own child?’

  Marmaduke realised there were no adequate words to cover her experience. He had no idea what to say until he heard his voice answering her in a quiet, deliberate measure.

  ‘Understand me, Isabel, There’s only one thing I want – Mingaletta. I don’t want to marry you. It’s nothing personal. I don’t want a wife, I want an ally. A woman who’ll be my accomplice. Like a paid mercenary. Marry me. Give me your unquestioning loyalty in public. And in private I’ll grant you complete freedom to speak your mind – as you do only too well!’

  She gasped. ‘Are you insane? After what I just confessed?’

  ‘You and I are two of a kind. We can never shock each other by how low we have sunk. We’ve both committed murder. We’re a perfect match. You hate men and I enjoy women too much to confine myself to any one female. You see? We’re ideally suited to living in an arranged marriage. Strictly as brother and sister, of course!’

  Isabel pulled off her mask and stared at him for a full minute as if his crazy idea was firing her imagination. ‘What exactly would you expect from me as your ally?’

  He briefly ran through the history of his promise to his mother and his long struggle with Garnet. ‘I’m sorry to be blunt but this is the only reason I’d consider marrying you or anyone else. But it isn’t a life sentence. In a year or so when Mingaletta is mine I’ll set you free to live your own life.’

  ‘You are mad!’

  ‘No. To quote Hamlet, there is method in my madness. If you agree to my proposition, you are free to state your terms.’

  ‘Two things,’ Isabel said promptly. ‘Money. Paid quarterly. Secondly, you must never again question me about my crime or my past life in England.’

  Marmaduke was surprised by the speed and nature of her conditions but he did not quibble. ‘Fine. Agreed on both counts. I’ll have Edwin draw up a private contract. When the terms are fulfilled you’ll be free to leave as a financially independent young woman.’

  He offered his hand in the manner of two men sealing a pact. ‘It’s a pleasure to do business with you, Isabel de Rolland. We have a busy few days ahead of us so I’ll leave you to your beauty sleep. I’m off to the theatre.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘Tomorrow I’l
l take you to the finest dressmaker in Sydney Town to fit you for your wedding gown.’

  The distant church clock chimed the ninth hour as Marmaduke hurried down the hotel steps towards his carriage, where Thomas nodded asleep on the box seat.

  Marmaduke was annoyed that tonight he would be guilty of the one breach of good manners that mattered to him – his late arrival at the theatre. He hoped he would be in time to hear the aria that had made Josepha St John famous or at least to catch her final encore so he could genuinely rave about her performance at their late supper.

  He felt unsettled by the extraordinary scene he had played out with Isabel. His description of his mother’s rape and the murder he’d committed under the guise of a duel would have shattered his engagement to any girl in the British Isles. But not Isabel de Rolland. She had immediately topped his story with her own bizarre crime.

  It wasn’t the act of infanticide that shocked him, a not uncommon remedy for women of the lower orders to dispose of an unwanted babe at birth. The law often dealt leniently with what was considered a misdemeanour rather than a crime. But he was angered by the imbalance of the scales – justice without mercy. To pick a gentleman’s pocket and relieve him of his handkerchief meant transportation. A prostitute who rolled a drunken customer and stole a few paltry coins earned seven years in New South Wales – in reality a life sentence. Few convicts ever returned home.

  What truly saddened Marmaduke about Isabel’s story was the manner of her babe’s conception. No star-crossed love affair, no single night of pleasure. Isabel clearly had no memory of how she had come by the child. Did amnesia conceal a traumatic experience? He recalled the venom in her words, ‘I told him it was better off dead!’

  Marmaduke realised with a sense of shock that although Isabel was technically a fallen woman, in terms of her sexual experience she was indeed, though he baulked at the word, a virgin.

  On the point of climbing into his carriage and prodding Thomas awake, Marmaduke paused to look up at the second-storey window of Isabel’s chambers.

  The curtain was drawn back. Her pinched little face, free of its mask, was looking directly at him. He flipped back his cape, doffed his top hat and made a deep bow.

  Isabel responded with a timid wave of the hand and an expression so wistful Marmaduke felt a pang of guilt.

  She loves theatre so much she was distraught at the memory of Edmund Kean’s last performance on stage. I must take her to the Theatre Royal one night.

  He felt loath to depart while Isabel remained watching him. ‘She keeps saying she hates men. But “the lady doth protest too much, methinks”.’

  Thomas sat bolt upright, embarrassed to be caught napping. ‘What’s that, sir – Marmaduke?’

  ‘Nothing, Thomas. Just thinking out loud. It’s off to the Theatre Royal and I’ll need you to return for me later. Expect a very long night, Thomas.’

  ‘He’s like a chameleon,’ Isabel said to herself as she watched Marmaduke depart in his fine carriage. One day he looked and acted like a Colonial yokel with nouveau riche pretensions. Tonight he cut such a handsome figure she suspected he would not look out of place among the crème of London society. Not that I’ve had much experience of that!

  Resting her head against the window frame she admired the extraordinary expanse of star-filled sky above the row of new buildings lining the street, beyond it the impressive church towers and sandstone public buildings. It hardly seemed credible that Sydney Town had grown to this state of Georgian elegance since the First Fleet arrived less than half a century earlier.

  Isabel patted her stomach, grateful for the unaccustomed pleasure of a belly filled with fine food. She enjoyed the champagne’s magical transformation of her mind and body. Unused to drinking alcohol, she had imbibed more in the past twenty-four hours than she had during the rest of her life. The sensation gave her an idea as to why some men indulged in the practice to the point of ruin.

  Relieved to be free to sleep alone in her luxurious chambers she blew out the candles, shed her fine new clothes and crawled under the bedcovers. She was so emotionally exhausted that she waved aside her customary prayers. ‘Sorry, Lord, I’ll say twice as many tomorrow.’

  On the point of giving herself up to the pleasant haze of sleep she heard her slurred voice holding a dual conversation with herself as if with a trusted old friend.

  ‘You realise what you’ve done, don’t you, Isabel? You’ve agreed to marry a man who is totally insane.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But it’s only for a year or so. And at least I’ll have money to keep Aunt Elisabeth safe when she arrives...and my little Rose Alba will never go barefoot again...’

  Chapter 16

  Garnet Gamble rode towards the plains that stretched to the mountains on the western horizon. This wasn’t legally his land according to the documents that defined the boundaries of Bloodwood and Mingaletta but he would brook no arguments from any man or the law. This was all his land by right of occupation. He knew to the headcount how many of his cattle and sheep grazed there. Heaven help any duffers who tried to steal them. Despite the law he had ordered his ticket-of-leave boundary-riders to carry firearms and be ready to fire at any bolter on sight.

  Today, armed as usual, Garnet surveyed his realm and the endless expanse of blue sky above him with an ambiguous sense of pleasure. His ultimate plan for his empire was about to come to fruition but he was still in the dark about the exact details thanks to Marmaduke’s bloody-mindedness.

  In recent months he had been preoccupied with thoughts about the God whom he had divorced from his mind since the day of Miranda’s funeral. Was this an omen that his days on earth were numbered? He had begun to suspect he was not immortal.

  Hell, I’m only five-and-forty. I’ve got another thirty years or more. The world’s my oyster now I’ve got that profligate son of mine cornered to breed the next generation of Gambles. The boy will thank me one day. All the riches in the world can’t replace a son. But I’ll be damned if I let Marmaduke know that, the ungrateful whelp.

  He stiffened at sight of the lone horseman galloping towards him across the plain. Garnet’s hand moved to the pistol in his belt. The rider waved his hat with both hands to signal he wasn’t armed but drew rein just out of range of Garnet’s pistol and hollered.

  ‘It’s me, Hooley, sir. The mail rider’s horse went lame. Here’s your mail.’

  Garnet didn’t recognise Hooley’s face but then he would be hard pressed to identify every man jack on his estate. ‘Right, give ’em over. Back to work with you.’

  Garnet turned his horse’s head for home. He saw the ecclesiastical seal on one letter. A son’s wedding day gave a man a fresh lease of life – it promised grandsons.

  He remembered the words of a fellow convict on the Fortune. Chained together at night they had made an odd couple, he a rugged sixteen-year-old and Josiah Mendoza, a haggard old Hebrew who feared the ship’s bullies but kept a fatherly eye on him. They never discussed their sentences, guilt or innocence but Garnet called to mind Josiah’s words one night when the old man was in philosophical mood.

  ‘I am descended from a long line of respected merchants but I regret I failed to live up to the good name I inherited.’

  ‘At least you know who your ancestors were.’ Garnet added quickly, ‘No shame of my Mam’s, but I don’t know for sure who my father was.’

  The old Jew nodded sagely. ‘Our Talmud describes men like me who fail to build on the merits of our ancestors. We’re called Vinegar Son from Wine. The reverse is a man who has improved on the record of his ancestors. He’s called Wine Son from Vinegar.’

  ‘Too late for me to change. Transportation has marked me for life.’

  Josiah shook his head. ‘You have youth on your side. There’s time to turn your life around. You can become Wine Son from Vinegar.’

  Josiah Mendoza. Thanks to one of his paid informants Garnet knew that Marmaduke had been Mendoza’s silent partner in his jewellery store ever since the boy had
bolted. But Garnet kept that knowledge to himself. He had failed with Marmaduke. But when he got his hands on a Gamble grandson he would make damned sure he’d grow up to be Wine Son from Vinegar.

  The sight of Bloodwood Hall in the distance gave Garnet an upsurge of spirits. Few men in the Colony possessed a grander English country residence and he prided himself he had planned every corner. His knowledge of the interiors of English country houses was limited so to furnish it he had relied on that London arbiter of good taste, Rudolph Ackerman, in the copies of the lavishly illustrated Repository of the Arts. With these as his guide and Miranda’s fine eye for quality he had imported expensive pieces and outbid competitors at Sam Lyons’s Antique Auctions. All Bloodwood Hall needed now was an aristocratic mistress.

  On his arrival home Bridget informed him ‘The Welshman’ was waiting for him. Garnet hurried to his library, gave the nervous young man a cursory glance and seated himself behind his desk. Rhys Powell was in his mid-twenties and had the square, manly features, dark hair, grey eyes and stocky build common to the Welsh. His plain tailored jacket had seen better days.

  Garnet referred to Father Sibley’s previous letter of introduction. ‘It says your guardian gave you a decent education at a church board school where you had two years’ experience as a teacher of maths, English and music. On your arrival in the Colony you were reduced to the post of tutor from which you were dismissed.’

  The young man stammered, ‘My employment ended by mutual consent not disgrace.’

  ‘How so?’ Garnet demanded.

  ‘I am a gentleman, sir. My employer treated me as a lower servant. I was forced to eat in the kitchen with his assigned servants. Father Sibley was sensitive to my discomfort and drew my attention to your need for a trusted secretary to help manage your affairs, sir. So here you find me, ready and willing to serve you if you so choose.’

  Quiet as he is, this young Taffy is not without balls.

  Garnet stared him out. ‘Right. You’ll do. If you prove an asset at the end of three months I’ll double your quarterly salary. Agreed?’