The Lace Balcony

by Johanna Nicholls

  He hesitated and decided to risk the truth. ‘It’s said that tribal blacks believe that spirits cause a babe’s conception. They don’t link copulation – and conception. You can imagine the grief of some Aboriginal girls who’d slept with a white man – or been raped – and their babe’s skin never turned black. To them white skin means sickness. The couple on the beach averted their eyes because they felt sorry for you – like you might be close to death.’

  Her voice held a wistful note. ‘How sad for those young mothers.’ But she suddenly leaned forward as if to test him. ‘How do you know all this Mungo?’

  ‘I was born here, I took in stories with my mother’s milk.’

  Mungo noticed she remained withdrawn for some time. Once again her mood swung between elation and sadness, a code he was determined to crack.

  • • •

  Vianna grew impatient as the shadows lengthened along the track leading them into the heart of the majestic forests of the Illawarra that echoed with the distinctive sound of timber-cutters sawing the cedar giants, a man at either end of each long, double-handed saw. The trunks were so thick it took a day or more, Mungo told her, to send another giant crashing headlong into the forest.

  ‘You’ve shown me wombats, kangaroos, bush rats, goannas. Even lyrebirds that can imitate human sounds. Where are the orphans you promised me?’

  ‘Let’s hope there aren’t any. The Illawarra is special to me. Kentigern L’Estrange brought me here as a kid. He didn’t tell anyone I was his son but I didn’t care. It was the first time I had ever had him all to myself – away from Felix.’

  Embarrassed to be caught revealing their rivalry, he drew her attention to the silent arrival of a small mob of kangaroos that had hopped close enough to line up on the verge of the track to study them. Two soft-eyed does were flanked by a giant Big Red, who looked powerful enough to fell a man with one blow of the paws he held in the stance of a boxer. Two baby joeys, as if at some signal from their mothers, each leapt headlong into their mothers’ pouches.

  ‘That big fella, Red Roger, is a born pugilist. I’ve met up with him before. We had a sparring match. He knocked me flat. Look, he’s remembered me.’

  ‘Is this one of your tall stories, Mungo?’ Vianna asked warily.

  ‘True as I live. Just watch.’ He called out to the old man kangaroo. ‘G’day, Roger. Good to see you and your family again. Sorry I don’t have time for a return match. Next time maybe.’

  With perfect timing ‘Red Roger’ appeared to acknowledge Mungo’s words by turning his head away. And with spring-heeled strides he bounded off, leading his mob into the darkening forest.

  Vianna was in awe. ‘He understood you! Kangaroos must be the cleverest animals on earth.’

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’ Mungo just managed to keep a straight face.

  A few miles further on, he swerved the wagon to avoid the leisurely crossing of a fat wombat leading her young to the other side.

  In awe, Vianna said softly, ‘I understand why you never want to leave your native land, Mungo. This place is full of magic.’

  He decided it was time to force her hand. ‘Then you’ll be happy living alone in the bush at Mookaboola with Felix, right?’

  ‘I don’t make plans from one hour to the next. I go where fortune leads me. Or should I say, where a gentleman’s fortune leads me. That’s the way of the courtesan.’

  She gave a brittle little laugh but Mungo didn’t choose to believe a word of it.

  ‘You deserve better. I’m proud of your progress in reading and writing. You can be anything you want – once you cut through Severin’s lies.’ He tried to sound casual. ‘Mam says you have the instincts of a born mother.’

  Vianna was quick to avert her eyes. ‘Where are we now? Have you lost your way? Or was that your plan all along?’

  Mungo mockingly echoed her previous excuse. ‘I don’t make plans from one hour to the next. That’s the way of us Currency Lads.’

  ‘Just how far is it to the nearest inn?’

  ‘I reckon about two days’ travel to the south, a three-day march to the west, or five days if I build a raft and we follow the coast north to Port Jackson.’

  Vianna looked appalled. ‘You are joking?’

  ‘On the other hand,’ he added, ‘I can make up a bed for you in the wagon.’

  ‘And where, may I ask, will you be sleeping?’

  ‘Under the wagon if it’s dry. But if it rains . . . ?’

  ‘You’ll remain under the wagon,’ she said firmly.

  Mungo served supper against the spectacular backdrop of a red-gold-purple sunset. Heated up in a camp oven, Jane’s Manx stew was delicious, particularly when washed down with a fine red wine boasting the new L’Estrange label.

  ‘This is strictly for the consumption of family and friends – or their name would be mud in society. I reckon that’s the height of colonial hypocrisy. It’s no shame for landowners to have hundreds of assigned men working their estates like slaves. But if the Exclusives smell one whiff of Trade – they’re ostracised. Mrs Less lives in fear of it.’

  ‘Is there nothing you fear, Mungo?’ Vianna asked.

  ‘Many things,’ he said lightly. ‘Solitary confinement. Vertigo. And being beaten by a woman at cards.’

  ‘I don’t gamble,’ Vianna said, ‘except on the generosity of gentlemen.’

  ‘Severin must have taught you a trick or two about the gambling business.’

  ‘Nothing. I was there to sing and entertain his clients. I never had access to his accounts or correspondence. I didn’t even know Daisy had been moved to where only God and Severin knows.’

  She added curiously, ‘Why did you really bring me here?’

  ‘I wanted us to be alone. To talk straight – with none of that courtesan crap that Severin filled your head with. The real you.’

  Wine freed her tongue and her anger. ‘My mother died of syphilis. My father was hanged as a highwayman at Newgate Prison. My stepmother sold me into service to a courtesan when I was twelve. Is that real enough for you, Mungo?’

  ‘Keep talking,’ he said. ‘Now you’re making sense.’

  ‘I don’t trust any man alive. You’re all tarred with the same brush. Some of you have blue blood and fine manners, but you all trade women like me for pleasure. So I play you at your own game. I take whatever I can get.’

  ‘That’s why you chose Felix over me, right?’

  ‘Yes! But I won’t lie to you. I can never be the right woman for you. I can’t give you what you need.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ He refilled her glass. ‘You know I want you. I offered you marriage. I’ll give you children. I’ll make my own fortune, watch me!’

  Her laughter gently mocked him. ‘You’re such a naïve boy! Can you really imagine me living in a stable?’

  ‘Why not?’ he snapped. ‘It was good enough for Jesus to be born in one. But that’s just a start. I have big plans for the future – one day I’ll be far richer than Felix. The point is, what do you want? Me or Felix? He’d give you every luxury – but he’ll never break free from society’s rules to marry you. He’d be ostracised.’

  ‘I don’t want to marry any man, now or ever. I just want to be free of being a pawn in any man’s game!’

  ‘Right. So now I know where I stand. Thanks a lot. Here’s what you can expect from me – no strings attached. You don’t need Severin to find Daisy. I’m already on the case. Mrs L’Estrange is helping me,’ he added, ‘although she doesn’t know Daisy’s connection to my houseguest in the stables.’

  He shared the letter from Goulouga and the list of publicans he’d tried.

  In shock, she listened attentively, then touched his hand. ‘You are a true friend.’

  His shrug hid his disappointment at the way the night was turning against him.

  ‘We’ll check a few more shanties tomorrow. Nothing we can do tonight. Except play for stakes.’

  He dealt out the cards and two equal
piles of coins. ‘Don’t attempt to cheat me, or I’ll wipe the floor with you, girl.’

  Vianna played as if her life depended on winning. Mungo was surprised that she did not cheat. Touched by her pleasure he allowed her to win.

  He yawned. ‘We’ve a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Take your winnings – you won fair and square,’ he lied. ‘Put a sock under your pillow. I don’t trust banks.’

  She climbed up onto the wagon to where he had made a bed with a palliasse and a pillow stuffed from soft native grasses. Angled above her, a canvas tarpaulin was rigged up in the event of rain.

  ‘You call this a bed?’ she muttered.

  ‘It’s the best on offer tonight,’ he said brusquely. ‘See you at sun up.’

  He rolled in a blanket under the wagon, deflated the night had ended this way. The wind rose in company with the crescent moon to rattle the canvas like a ship in full sail. Above him Vianna’s voice sounded on the verge of sleep.

  ‘Daisy was afraid of storms when we were at sea . . . whenever the ship rolled I told her stories . . . I wonder if she still remembers me . . . ?’

  Her voice trailed off in mid-sentence and Mungo knew she was asleep before he answered under his breath. ‘Who could ever forget you, Fanny?’

  • • •

  Dawn had not yet broken behind the hills when Vianna woke with a rapidly beating heart, alert to some unseen danger.

  The bush seemed alive with alien noises creating images in her head like dark fairytales. She decided it was safer to join Mungo under the wagon, and climbed down in the pre-dawn light quietly to avoid waking him.

  His eyes were wide open, staring at her, his voice a compelling whisper.

  ‘Don’t move. Don’t scream. I’m dead serious. My life’s in your hands.’

  Vianna knew the shades of teasing in his voice. This time it held genuine fear.

  She followed his glance down his body. God help him – he isn’t lying!

  She broke out in a cold sweat. Mungo lay rigid, wearing only a shirt, his body free of the blanket, his breathing so shallow his chest scarcely rose. Coiled across his thighs and immobile in sleep, its flat, heart-shaped head nestled against his belly, was a huge snake, coiled like a ship’s rope.

  She stared in horror at the deathly beauty – its gleaming hide ringed with bands of yellow and grey pebble-sized scales, its head like a shield of armour with a plate between its eyes, its tail ending in a fine strip like the thong of a whip.

  Mungo mouthed the words in a whisper. ‘Eastern Tiger snake – deadly.’

  Vianna’s breathing drummed so loudly in her ears she was terrified the sound would startle the snake awake. Crouched under her shawl, her body ached with the effort to remain immobile. Her unblinking gaze fixed on the snake’s eyes so long her eyes watered. Time lost all meaning, trapping them in a zone beyond time and space.

  Vianna willed the sun to rise. The voice inside her head fired questions. What are you going to do? The Eastern Tiger’s venom is fatal. No help for miles around. Why didn’t you pay attention to what he said yesterday? Try to remember!

  ‘Australian snakes are amongst the most poisonous on the planet. . . . he King Brown and the Tiger Snake can kill a man dead within minutes . . . but snakes aren’t natural predators. They only attack you if they are in danger . . . leave ’em alone and they’ll leave you alone . . .’

  That’s small comfort right now. But Mungo seems to be practising what he preaches. No resistance.

  Vianna had never been taught any prayers. In desperation she linked Mungo’s name to God and repeated it in an endless cycle . . . God save Mungo. God save Mungo.

  At sunrise weak rays filtered through the forest in thin reed-like shafts of light. For an unmeasurable time the snake stared at her, its eyes glittering like dark rubies. With nerve-wracking slowness, as if it had all the time in the world, the serpent’s head turned towards Mungo’s face. Then as if drawn in the direction of the light and the growing warmth of the sun, it slithered down his legs. She watched it disappear, disguised like a chameleon by the bush.

  She sprang to Mungo’s side. His pale, sweating face managed a half smile.

  ‘Good girl. One scream, one false move and I’d have been history.’

  ‘I thought I’d lost you. How brave you were! I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You only had two choices. Stay perfectly quiet – or go to my funeral.’

  His laugh sounded like a rusty saw. ‘Do you think you could rustle up a brandy for breakfast?’

  They lay huddled together, passing the flask back and forth. Now the danger was past, Mungo was trembling from head to foot in shock.

  ‘Next snake I see I’ll kill it first and ask questions later,’ Vianna promised.

  ‘Why? He was only doing what snakes are born to do. Find a warm place to sleep until sunrise.’ He choked on the laughter caught in his throat. ‘I knew a bloke once who got bitten by a Tiger Snake on his finger – he chopped it in half.’

  ‘The snake?’

  ‘No, his finger. Better to lose a finger than his life. But if that Tiger had sunk his fangs into me, I’d have died trying to decide which fate was worse – losing my life or my waterworks. Hell! Sorry about the language.’

  Mungo’s do-or-die choice was so appalling, the brandy so potent and his laughter so infectious that Vianna fell against him, both on the edge of hysteria.

  By sunrise the small flask was dry. Mungo was pleasantly drunk.

  ‘Now it’s back to work. We’ll call in at the timber mill and pass on Father’s instructions to the overseer. I’d better warn you, those blokes are as tough as cedar trunks. They’ll fight each other to dance with you tonight. They haven’t set eyes on a woman in a year or two – so it’s open season on anything in petticoats. But I reckon they’ll draw the line at a man’s missus.’ He peered at her bleary-eyed, trying to keep her in focus. ‘Do you mind if I introduce you as my wife?’

  Vianna shrugged. ‘Better that than if I’d introduced myself as your widow.’

  That set Mungo off again, weak with relief. Vianna knew he was in no condition to drive around hairpin bends and along the narrow tracks cut into the side of the cliff face. She took control, throwing his bedroll into the cart, clambering up onto the driver’s seat, convinced she was the slightly more sober of the two.

  ‘I’ll drive. You navigate,’ she said. Flicking the whip in the air, she set the horse off at a smart pace along the track leading to the sawmills.

  Driving along, Vianna began to sing a risqué song she had used to entertain the gamblers at Severin House. In her heart she sent up a prayer to the God she had never known. Thank you for saving Mungo’s life.

  She was startled by Mungo’s echo of her thought. ‘Thanks for saving my life.’

  ‘I didn’t. If it’s true that only the good die young, no doubt you, Mungo Quayle, will live to a ripe old age . . .’ That is, if Severin doesn’t find him first.

  In an attempt to banish Severin from her mind, she snapped an order. ‘Come on, make yourself useful. Where’s the turn-off to the cedar camp? I quite fancy the idea of being the only woman at a bush camp, with scores of men who haven’t seen a woman’s face in years, queuing up to dance with me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mungo with resignation, ‘I reckon you would.’

  Chapter 30

  The noise of the civil war that had broken out downstairs in his office caused Kentigern L’Estrange to hurtle out of his bedchamber and along the corridors with Jane Quayle at his heels until she halted as they reached the Bridge of Sighs.

  ‘What are you waiting for, woman? Your son’s as much at fault as hers is.’

  They both knew the unspoken rules. ‘I will never cross over into your wife’s domain,’ Jane said coldly. ‘If she does not set foot in mine.’

  ‘Are you defying me?’

  In answer she raised a stubborn chin, turned her back and walked away.

  He tried to save face. ‘All right, take the servants’ st
airs. Meet me there.’

  The shouting from his office grew more volatile at his approach. Three wide-eyed servant girls broke apart and scurried out of his path, obviously caught eavesdropping on the drama inside.

  Kentigern threw open the doors, infuriated by the sight of Mungo and Felix standing toe to toe grappling each other, their blond heads and angry faces a reminder of them as they once were – two schoolboys locked in combat.

  Their father waved his walking stick in the air with all the authority of a general ordering an errant cavalry into line. ‘How dare you! End this appalling behaviour this instant or I’ll ram this poker up the arse of whichever one of you scoundrels continues to fight! I refuse to countenance civil war under my roof, do you hear?’

  Shame-faced, Mungo and Felix froze then broke apart, hastily adjusting their jackets and smoothing wild locks of hair into place.

  ‘My pardon, Father, I got carried away,’ Felix apologised.

  ‘My fault, Sir. I baited Felix beyond endurance.’

  ‘It’s all over that confounded female, isn’t it? Don’t lie.’

  ‘Not her fault, Sir,’ Mungo responded quickly.

  ‘No one but ours, Sir,’ Felix agreed smartly.

  ‘You can both agree on one damned thing, at least. If I catch you disturbing the peace once more, I’ll turf that girl out into the street. And what’s more I’ll carpet each of you in the presence of your mothers.’

  This latter threat was so dire to Felix that Mungo almost grinned despite himself.

  ‘Is someone taking my name in vain?’ the cool, aristocratic voice of Albruna L’Estrange enquired from the doorway.

  ‘I’ve finished with him. He’s all yours,’ snapped the Master, shooting his cuffs and straightening his cravat as he charged from the room.

  Mungo saw that Mrs Less looked unusually attractive today, in a smoky pink summer gown that made her appear softer, younger, than in her formal mode of dress.