The Lace Balcony

by Johanna Nicholls

  Felix recognised him, the son of a recently assigned servant. The lad stopped playing and looked up at his teacher, his eyes wide with anxiety.

  Albruna’s tone was firm but not unkind, delivering the same advice she had given him as a small boy. ‘From mistakes you become smart, boy. Now go back to the beginning.’

  She looked across at Felix as he made a courteous bow, placing a finger to his lips in respect for the student. He silently waved the letter, then placed it on a tray inside the door.

  Thankful that the child’s presence allowed him to exit and avoid his mother’s long held outrage that females were ineligible to sign petitions, he ordered the carriage for his father, then steeled himself to face another expected show of emotion, whether grief, anger or despair.

  No avoiding the poor woman now. Despite Mother’s ban on Jane Quayle entering her half of the house, she’s always treated me fairly.

  Hat in hand, Felix made his way through the garden to its far end, where the narrow walkway lay between the stables and the small whitewashed grace-and-favour cabin that formed the rear boundary of the Rockingham Estate. These small buildings were separated from the twin grand mansions by the lush expanse of garden broken by a central flagstone path.

  Felix hesitated by the side door of the cottage, well known to him. It consisted of one room up and two down, a tiny attached skillion for cooking, plus a sliver of a building shaped like a sentry box, the kind of water closet that his mother always described with the quaint German euphemism, ‘The room to which the Emperor walks’.

  Built by convict labour, as the entire estate was, the whitewashed cottage was built in a simple design that Felix suspected would not have looked out of place in past centuries on the Isle of Mann, Jane Quayle’s native place. It had no private garden except for a minute courtyard filled with lovingly tended terracotta tubs containing a wide range of herbs. Window boxes held flowering herbs that trailed over the windowsill.

  Jane Quayle was nowhere in sight. The open door gave forth the seductive smell of baking – arousing his memories as well as his tastebuds. Cregneish biscuits shaped like golden bars, he was sure of it. The aroma recalled a day when he was five years old – and his first fisticuffs fight with Mungo.

  Bested by Mungo, who had knocked him to the ground, Felix had sobbed as much from fear as pain. There were bloodstains on his mother’s gift, the miniature military uniform he wore with pride. Mutti would be furious.

  Jane Quayle, the family’s assigned servant, had carried him inside her tiny cottage which smelled of baking and herbs, so unlike the grand ‘big house’ where he lived with his parents at the far end of the garden.

  While Mungo, in disgrace, had lurked in the doorway, Jane had fed Felix her delicious Manx biscuits, bathed his knee and bandaged the wound with fresh herbs. His tears and pain had disappeared under the spell of the story she told him of the mermaid found on the magical Isle of Mann.

  As proud as a wounded soldier, Felix had returned to the big house, confused by his mother’s angry response. She had ripped off Jane’s bandage and snapped at his father, ‘I’ll be having none of Quayle’s witchcraft on my son, thank you!’

  His father had left the room, tight-lipped, refusing to comment.

  Replacing his bandage with her own ‘physician’s ointment’, Albruna had dismissed Felix’s attempts to relate Jane’s tale of the mermaid and instead told him a fascinating German legend of the Lorelei, the mysterious golden-haired mermaids whose siren call lured sailors to their death . . .

  Felix’s memory was broken by the velvety voice of Jane Quayle. ‘Come in, come in. It was you I was expecting.’

  He noticed for the first time how the years had added gentle lines to her face and a streak of silver in her chestnut hair. Her body was fuller now in the bosom and hips, but her sky-blue eyes were as young as the day she had mended his knee.

  Beckoned inside, Felix placed his top hat on the only surface that wasn’t covered in flour and baking implements. He kept his tone gentle, unable to anticipate her response to whatever the letter contained.

  ‘You have not changed, Jane. I was just recalling how you cured me with your herbal medicine – and your fine cakes.’

  ‘Which have you come for today? My cooking is simple enough. But when it comes to herbs I can mend anything – except a broken heart.’

  Felix noted the pain that seeped into her seemingly light remark.

  ‘I bring you a letter from Father.’

  ‘Read it, if you will. Nothing has changed. I can only make my mark.’

  She waved him to a chair and moved across to the skillion where the water in the kettle was playing in a rolling boil on the hob. She fuelled a large teapot and returned to him.

  ‘Do you carry bad news or good? No need to beat about the bush,’ she said lightly as if to conceal her nerves.

  Should I tell her about Mungo? No, best let Father’s words speak for him.

  ‘I suspect both good and bad. Father offered no clues.’

  ‘The clue lies inside the envelope,’ she prompted and pushed the letter back across the table into his hands.

  Felix took a gulp of tea to lubricate his mouth. He began with a cough to clear his throat.

  ‘It begins, “Dear Jane Quayle. I am sending my son in my place because as you know he is gentle of heart and knows how to comfort women – an art I have never mastered.

  ‘I have just received word from the new Governor, Darling, that he has granted your son a reprieve. His death sentence has been commuted to four years at Moreton Bay. I give you my word I shall continue to lobby on his behalf for a reduced sentence.”’

  Felix looked up from the letter and met her steady gaze. ‘Your son’s life is saved, Jane.’

  Her face was devoid of any trace of emotion, clearly in shock.

  He continued: ‘Your years of faithful service and your forbearance have earned you more gratitude than I am able to express on paper – or face to face. I have done everything in my power to find legal ways to set things to rights. I have legally transferred to you the deeds to your cottage which I understand is close to your heart. No one, now or in the future, has the power to evict you. Your cottage is for you and your descendants to dispose of as you see fit . . .’

  Felix felt anxious that his father’s words cast him in a bad light.

  ‘Jane, you do know, don’t you? I would never allow you to be pressured into moving from this house – or selling it against your will.’

  Jane gave a nod of assent but gestured for Felix to continue reading. He was eager to complete his father’s task.

  ‘I once made you a promise I am unable to keep. The details of my will are not of my choosing. Therefore I have set up a small trust fund for the benefit of you and any children you have or may bear in the future. Unless of course you choose to marry.’

  Felix was startled by the servant’s snort of derision, but he knew that under English law, on her marriage, a woman relinquished all her fortune and property to her husband. Under Manx law, women had more equitable rights – their house was often in both their names.

  ‘The man is surely joking!’ Jane snapped. ‘I’m unlikely to find a good husband at this time of my life. And I’m not so desperate I would throw in my lot with a bad man. I’ve met enough of that kind already.’

  ‘Would you prefer me to desist? I can see this subject is painful for you.’

  ‘It is indeed painful, boy! Because Master L’Estrange is avoiding the only thing I care about. Does he not say more than this? Nothing?’

  Felix silently cursed his father for putting him in this untenable position. He felt like a surgeon forced to operate without any alcohol to deaden the patient’s pain.

  ‘Forgive me, Jane. There’s nothing more on paper, except his best wishes and the signature, Kentigern L’Estrange, Esquire. But I promise you Father is doing everything in his power to obtain your son’s early release. We will not rest until we set him free.’

  ‘
That’s supposed to comfort me, is it? What if your father dies? Mrs L’Estrange rules your family. She hates me. Her tongue would cut rags. Would she allow her son to continue the fight to free my son? Never!’

  Felix knew he could not hope to stem the fire of her anger until it burnt itself out. He listened to her in silence.

  ‘And why should I trust you? You were nice enough as a small boy, but no match for your mother. You returned home from your Grand Tour of Europe a fine gentleman. Your childhood playmate means naught to you now. You keep calling him ‘my son’. Can’t you even bring yourself to say his name? Mungo’s your half-brother, for God’s sake!’

  The words cut him like a whiplash. Felix leaned across and tried to hold her hand but she withdrew from him as if he was contaminated.

  ‘Jane Quayle, please hear me out. Ever since I discovered the truth these few years past, I have always acknowledged to Mungo that he is my brother. But I must respect my parents’ wishes. We can never acknowledge him in public. Society would label him a bastard. Mungo can never bear the L’Estrange name. Father has already given him the only name of his that was possible.’ Mungo was from the ancient Celtic priest known both as St Kentigern and St Mungo. ‘The name my mother had planned to call me.’

  ‘Mungo had a right to it! He was born here. Not you! The truth is when your mother sailed home to Prussia – their marriage was ended. How could I know she would return a year later with you – a babe in arms? Conceived just before she left the Colony, she said.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that I am not –?’

  ‘No, no! A blind man could tell you are both your father’s sons! Just look at you, two peas from the same pod, born only months apart. Except your mother’s son is the L’Estrange heir. My son is the bastard child.’

  ‘His love child,’ Felix corrected and the words rolled out before he could prevent them. ‘Yes, I bear the L’Estrange name. But as a boy I envied Mungo. I wished I could change places with him – to live here in this cottage you filled with love, laughter, your stories and your songs.’

  Jane covered her mouth with her hand, shocked into silence.

  Felix pressed on. ‘You want the whole truth, Jane? When Mother returned from Prussia in triumph to show Father the babe she believed she would never bear him and discovered your babe, Mungo, living with you and Father in her house, she was afraid Mungo would steal my birth right. You know, like Abraham’s wife Sarah was afraid her handmaiden Hagar’s son Ishmael would do.’

  Jane nodded in acknowledgment of the Bible story.

  Felix continued in a rush. ‘Mother tried to force Father to transfer you to another assigned master. Father refused. She wanted you gone, not simply because Father had – relations with his convict servant – that’s not so uncommon in this Colony. What option did she have? No money of her own. Divorce needs an act of parliament – and shames the woman. If she’d left him she’d have lost custody of her child – me. The only thing she could do to save face in Society was to go on living here – in two houses joined by a bridge.’ He paused. ‘Can you face the whole truth?’

  It was Jane Quayle’s turn to remain silent.

  ‘Mother is not a monster. She doesn’t want Mungo dead. She hates you because you replaced her in her husband’s heart. Father has never denied it. You are the love of his life, Jane Quayle!’

  Her hand shook as she made a tentative gesture towards him, but then withdrew it. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘When I’m angry it is my own tongue that would cut rags.’

  ‘I have no right to judge you, Father or Mother. Only God has that right. But I have grown up in a grand mansion filled with hatred, bitterness and recriminations. Mungo grew up in this modest cottage, filled with love. Mungo and I might have shared the same education, but we were raised from birth to be rivals – by our mothers!’

  Felix was trembling at the shock of unleashing emotions he had controlled since childhood. He gave her time to allow his words to sink in.

  ‘Well, Felix, Mungo’s lost to Moreton Bay. That should please Mrs L’Estrange.’

  Felix threw his arms wide in a gesture of defeat. ‘Injustice pleases no one, Jane. Where is your Bible?’ he demanded.

  Jane blinked in surprise but her eyes betrayed her with a sideways glance at the kitchen dresser.

  In two strides Felix was taking down the King James’s Bible from the shelf. He placed his right palm on the leather cover.

  ‘No matter what happened in the past, Jane Quayle, I swear to you, in God’s name, Father and I will continue the fight to bring Mungo back home to you – alive.’

  Exhausted by his rare display of emotion, Felix strode from the cottage and hurried to the stables. He carried in his mind the picture of Jane Quayle, her eyes filled with the first tears he had ever seen there.

  Fine words of mine, but I’m no hero. I know Mungo Quayle better than anyone. How am I going to deliver my promise to Jane – without betraying my own mother and jeopardising my own inheritance? I wouldn’t trust my half-brother to polish the family silver!

  Chapter 3

  Early in the morning of the third day after her arrival in Sydney Town, Fanny Byron mulled through her plans for the day ahead while absentmindedly feeding little Daisy from the bowl of gruel the landlady provided in exchange for an extra couple of pennies. The front room she rented for them was reasonably clean but Fanny continued to pay only one night in advance, hoping that each day would bring the answer to her dilemma – an offer of work that would allow her to keep Daisy.

  The child trustingly opened her mouth each time Fanny played the game of circling the spoon in the air before she fed her.

  ‘Good girl! That’s the way to do it!’ she said in the cheeky tone used by Punch in the age-old Punch and Judy puppet shows.

  The humidity curled Daisy’s wispy hair in a fan above her head. Her milky blue eyes opened wide as she gave a smile that reminded Fanny of her stepmother, the plain, kindly woman who on her deathbed had made Fanny promise to care for Daisy.

  Fanny recalled Stepmother’s dying words, ‘Men will fail you lass, as is their wont. God will always protect you – if you ask Him with a pure heart.’

  Fanny stroked the child’s cheek. ‘I know naught about God, Daisy. But if anyone’s got a pure heart, that’s you, little one.’

  The child shared her surname, Byron, although there was no blood relationship. Fanny had no way of knowing who the child’s father was, presumably one in the procession of male boarders her stepmother had taken in to keep food on the table after Father was hanged. Fanny had slept in a corner of the room she shared with them, accepting as normal the ugly sounds men made at night in her stepmother’s bed.

  Fanny had a vivid flash of memory of that night Stepmother had sprung her boarder on top of Fanny, trying to pump his way between her legs – the physical pain, the man’s abuse at his failure to penetrate her, his groans when Stepmother kicked him down the stairs – the memories never faded. Fanny had been promptly placed in service at Madame Amora’s townhouse at St John’s Wood, awed by its elegance. It had seemed the end of her final link with family life but Fanny accepted it was Stepmother’s unspoken way of protecting her – the lesser of two evils. Puberty had made her body blossom at twelve to become a target for men.

  Daisy’s chirping reminded Fanny the child was still hungry and that her own belly rumbled from lack of food.

  ‘Poor little mite, all you’ve got in the world is me, and I know precious little about babes. I can’t even judge exactly how old you are, girl. Madame only gave me the occasional half day off. On one visit to your Mam I found a new bloke was her boarder. Next time I called, a few months later, there you were sucking at her breast. Just like she’d found you under a cabbage.’

  Daisy gently took her hand and tried to steer the spoon to her own mouth and then to Fanny’s.

  ‘Hungry, but generous too. That’s a good sign. You’ll just have to teach me what you need, love. Now let’s have a sing-song while you finish yo
ur breakfast.’

  Fanny began, ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush . . .’ while Daisy clapped her hands in time.

  Daisy was the first and only babe she had ever held in her arms, and she had only learned to interpret her few baby words on the voyage out, during which the ship’s doctor and Father Francis Xavier had given her sound advice on looking after her. Fanny felt more confident in her sewing skills than nursery care, so she had cut up one of her mistress’s silk petticoats to make and embroider two new little dresses for Daisy, clothes she was now holding in reserve along with the new lace up boots.

  ‘A housekeeper’s job would be just the ticket, so I can keep you with me. But right now I’m low on brass, sweetheart. So if things don’t work out today I’m going to have to put you in that Benevolent Asylum for a few days – until I find a place. Don’t worry, it won’t be for a minute longer than necessary. You and me, we’re not just sisters, we’re mates, right?’

  Daisy reached out and with a little fist covered in gruel, patted Fanny’s face.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Daisy!’ She quickly followed the hasty reaction with a reassuring smile. Daisy had an unerring instinct for sensing true from false emotions and cried in sympathy if Fanny was teary.

  After she had bathed and dressed the child, Fanny surveyed her handiwork.

  ‘You’re all clean and beautiful. Who could resist you?’

  She counted her coins and paid the landlady to mind her for the day. Although shabby, the woman was clean enough in her habits, apart from the clay pipe clamped between her teeth – her daily companion.

  ‘I can’t say exactly how long I’ll be – I have several interviews for work lined up. Not sure which one I’ll take,’ Fanny lied. ‘But I’ll be back by sunset for sure.’

  Fanny bent and kissed the crown of the little girl’s head, where the feathery hair reminded Fanny of the white native parrots whose sulphur crest of feathers fanned up on their heads when excited.