The Lace Balcony

by Johanna Nicholls

  ‘I could. Given the bridegroom can bring himself to ask me.’

  Felix held out his hand. ‘Thank you.’

  Both turned their eyes to the alcove, alerted by their father’s sotto voce question to his wife. ‘Will you be free to attend the wedding before your ship sails for Hamburg? Quite soon, I take it? You are quite determined to leave forever?’

  Albruna paused to put aside her teacup.

  ‘You are asking me two questions. Allow me to handle the first one first. No matter what we feel, I think we should both attend our son’s wedding, yes? Close ranks, at least until the marriage is signed, sealed and delivered.’

  ‘Agreed,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Molly is a very young bride, as I was myself. The fact that her own mother disapproves of the match, and given her delicate condition, Molly will need female support on her wedding day. As for the Bussorah Merchant it has been given a bill of health after the cholera epidemic and is scheduled to sail this week.’

  There was a pause. ‘I see. Kind of you to remain for the wedding, Albruna. You appear more reconciled to Felix’s fait accompli than I am. It will take some time to get used to the idea of a L’Estrange bride drawn from the servants’ quarters.’

  ‘I admit I had grander plans in mind for a wife for Felix. But I have observed Molly for some time. The girl possesses a great deal of courage – and a certain natural dignity. It seems she is genuinely interested in astronomy – a girl in a million.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll grant you that. It may surprise you to know the girl reminds me of you at her age, when we first met, remember?’

  ‘How could I ever forget? I am being sent by my Grossmutter on my first ever visit to London – overcome with nerves on meeting my tall, handsome English cousin. I fell instantly in love.’

  ‘You were not alone in that.’

  As if caught out by the sentiment of his words, he helped himself to another drink. ‘Despite all that followed and the way I have let you down, we did at least share first love, Albruna. I guess that is something, eh?’

  Albruna lowered her voice. ‘I am forgetting nothing. Good and bad. I remember the L’Estrange family’s antagonism to your impoverished Prussian cousin – despite my aristocratic ancestry. Yet you stood up to them. You declined the modest dowry my mother was only able to offer. And against your father’s wishes you came here to the Colony to make your own fortune. I was so proud of you.’

  ‘Then later – I broke your heart,’ he said bleakly.

  Albruna’s voice was so low that Mungo and Felix strained to hear her words.

  ‘Yes. But I also never forget you married me knowing how my father died in battle before I was born.’

  ‘Nonsense. A child is not responsible for its parents.’

  ‘No. But through all these years no matter how bitterly we fought, never once did you remind me I am being illegitimate. I always admire you for that, Kentigern.’

  Albruna made a swift, graceful exit to attend to Molly, leaving her husband deep in thought.

  Mungo and Felix avoided each other’s eyes, embarrassed to feel so moved, caught eavesdropping on an old, well-kept family secret.

  Mungo broke the silence. ‘She’s quite a woman, your mother.’

  ‘So is yours,’ Felix said with a sigh. ‘Pity they don’t get on.’

  Mungo drained his glass. ‘I’ve never been a best man before. We didn’t have much call for weddings at Moreton Bay. But you can count on me to stand by you.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘And just for the record, mate, in case you’ve been wondering about Toby. It’s a long story but my mother has sorted it out. He’s my son. So Toby’s your nephew.’

  Felix thought that over for a few moments. ‘Toby’s the one person I don’t mind sharing with you, Mungo.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Mungo.

  Chapter 51

  Seagulls scudded over the marine blue surface of the harbour, playfully diving for tiny fish in the sunlight-chequered patterns broken by the white-crested waves of the incoming tide that lapped at the scores of bays and coves along Port Jackson’s shorelines.

  Vianna stood watching the sunset from King’s Wharf, her carpetbag at her feet. Lying at anchor, the Bussorah Merchant was being loaded with colonial wheat for export and merino wool bound for Yorkshire’s woollen mills. No doubt tomorrow it would take on board the prized locally-bred horses bred for the British army in India.

  Beyond the Parramatta River that fed into the harbour, the setting sun sank slowly below the western horizon in a rich riot of colour like the giant palette of some Italian Master.

  Colonial-built river craft, including the Surprize, the Colony’s first paddle steamer, were plying their trade on excursions between Sydney Town and Rosehill. The Colony’s second oldest township was now growing rapidly under its true name, Parramatta – the whimsical Aboriginal word Mungo had translated for her as ‘the place where eels sit down’.

  The thought of Mungo weighed heavily on Vianna’s heart as she said a silent farewell to the port where less than five years earlier, as a suspected thief, she had first sought refuge from the law.

  In the manner claimed to be a drowning man’s experience, images of her life rushed helter-skelter before her eyes. Virtually all were linked to Mungo. From their first meeting, on the second day after her arrival in the Colony, Mungo had left indelible marks on her life. Most of them lies! I was irresistibly drawn to him from that first meeting, when I granted ‘Will Eden’ his dying wish to kiss me before he was hanged. What a romantic fool I was.

  Despite the pain of it, she smiled at the memory. The breeze off the harbour touched her lips as if to remind her of the magic of that first kiss – that had irrevocably changed her life. Because no matter what degradation followed with Severin, that kiss had reminded her that true, romantic love was a memory to be treasured.

  Random, fleeting images of Mungo brought back the moments of passion, humour, anger and despair she had shared with him. Simple, seductive gestures like the way he touched the nape of her neck with one finger before kissing that most vulnerable place on her body. And his voice, enchanting her with his wild stories, his beautiful lies. Mungo’s patience, breaking down the barrier of her belief that she was too dumb to learn to read and write. The cavalier way he had climbed her balcony – and the Macquarie lighthouse, despite his attacks of vertigo. Most painful of all were the memories of Mungo as a lover, and not only for his passion and virility. He had made her laugh in bed and experience for the first time in her life what it meant to give herself body and soul to a man – without fear or manipulation.

  I know I shall never experience love like that again. But because he showed me what true love is, I will never sell my body – never again degrade the memory of what it is possible for lovers to share.

  Now another girl will share that love. She could not escape the sharp memory of that truth. On the point of leaving the stables, carpetbag in hand, she had reached the bottom of the ladder when she overheard Cockney George’s garbled tale to an astonished Jane.

  ‘You shoulda been there, Jane. Cor! Is your Mungo a sly dog! He tricked Master Felix and won Molly Baker. I heard him myself – there’ll soon be three of them. Congratulations, Jane. You’re gunna be a grandmother, you are!’

  I was leaving anyway. But that was really rubbing salt in the wound.

  Now as she looked at the flags of all nations flying on the harbour master’s flagpoles – the mastheads of foreign vessels, whalers, convict transports and trading merchant vessels – Vianna searched amongst them for the Marryat signals and the flags that differentiated British vessels from the foreign war ships that dropped anchor in the appropriately named Neutral Bay on the northern shore. Felix had tried to teach her about navigation by the stars. Mungo had taught her the differences between brigs, schooners, cutters, sloops and the yellow and blue checkerboard flags flown by the new coastal steamers.

  The one flag that mattered
now was the Blue Peter flying from the masthead of the Bussorah Merchant, the sign that the vessel was ready to sail when the tide was right and a boat assigned to tug it out to the Heads. The Blue Peter was a beacon of hope.

  Whatever my future holds it can’t come soon enough for me. Australia is hell for some, paradise for others – but it’s a closed book for me now.

  Her sole piece of luggage, the carpetbag, was crammed with her clothing, diary and precious Jane Austen novels, ready to be stowed in the suite booked under the name of Mrs Brown.

  Vianna wondered whether Kentigern’s runaway wife would later accompany Jean-Baptiste to Europe as his patron, travelling companion, lover – or all three.

  And who could blame her? She’s still a handsome woman. It must have been a long, painful marriage, sharing her husband with Jane Quayle.

  Not for a moment did she condemn Jane. I should be grateful that she was Kentigern’s lover – otherwise Mungo would never have been born and I’d never have known the love of my life. I’d still be Severin’s creature.

  She felt ashamed at how easily she had been seduced by his plans for her. How excited and awed she had been by the world of glamour and luxury he had created around her. The primrose path to hell is well named. I certainly paid the full price. I lost Daisy. And fate has made me barren for life.

  Yet fate had rescued her again – this time at the hands of Jean-Baptiste.

  The sound of a drunken voice floated across the harbour, reminding her of the lyrics of Botany Bay, the convicts’ ironically jolly lament that began, ‘Farewell to old England forever . . .’ My journey is the reverse. ‘Farewell to old Sydney forever . . .’

  She was startled by a tanned seaman at her elbow, a Currency Lad, judging by his cheerful drawl. ‘Ready to climb on board are ye, Miss? Ye couldn’t do better. The Bussorah Merchant’s the soundest East Indiaman on the seven seas. Calcutta built, five hundred and thirty tons of her and refitted fine enough for Queen Adelaide herself. Ye’ll have a safe passage. But don’t forget the way back home. Boomerangs always return, right?’

  Not if I can help it. And home – where’s that? She tried to offer him a coin, but he waved the gesture aside. ‘I reckon its bad luck to accept money from a beautiful lady.’

  That’s just what Mungo would say. She gave him her most radiant smile and with his assistance, climbed on board.

  Her initial impression of ‘Mrs Brown’s’ cabin took her breath away. It was an extraordinary, elegant contrast to the cramped steerage cabin, a space smaller than Mungo’s loft, she had shared on the City of Edinburgh with Daisy and twelve men and women, forced for months to breathe the same fetid air.

  A profusion of flowers, champagne in a bucket of ice and a platter of cheeses and dry biscuits were waiting for her. She was less surprised by the birdcage covered by a dark cloth, no doubt housing a sleeping rainbow lorikeet or rosella – status symbols of this exotic land that many travellers took home to England.

  When she unpacked her carpetbag, ready to hang up her homemade dresses, she discovered the closet was filled with fine silk gowns, shawls, kid slippers, bonnets and a parasol – expensive clothing that made her own garments look like those of an orphan.

  ‘I must be in the wrong cabin. Unless these belong to Mrs L’Estrange? Or are they Jean-Baptiste’s gifts to me?’

  ‘Alas my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off . . .’ The husky voice of the parrot was a mockery of the human voice.

  But the voice that completed the line of the song was all too human and familiar, ‘. . . discourteously!’

  Greensleeves. She gave an involuntary shiver as she whirled around to face the source of the voice. The sulphur-crested cockatoo strutted with his head tilted to one side, fixing her with one sad, beady eye. He flew down from the rafter and his claws grasped the shoulder of the man smiling at her. Her heart sank.

  ‘I should have guessed,’ she said crisply. ‘Nothing is ever what it seems with you around, Severin. Did you pay Jean-Baptiste to trick me on board? Or did you order Blewitt to toss him overboard to feed the sharks?’

  ‘Nothing quite so melodramatic, m’dear.’

  As always Severin’s outwardly benign charm aroused in her a confused meld of contempt, fear, hatred that had destroyed the initial attraction – feelings so long an intrinsic part of her that they were forever indivisible. His silky voice, aligned to the dominance of his will, was now overlaid by another quality she found difficult to define.

  Surely it couldn’t be a touch of sadness?

  Severin’s gentle, tolerant laugh had always won him friends and confidants. ‘How protective you are of your admirers, m’dear. Bonnard will join the ship before it sets sail tomorrow. Rest easy, I have no conflict with the young Frog. The war is over, remember? We British and French are no longer enemies.’

  ‘I shall only believe my friend is safe when I see him on board.’

  ‘And so you shall. His well-being is to my advantage. I plan to make his name a byword in London art circles.’

  Severin introduced the cockatoo as Sir Sydney, placed him on the perch swinging from the rafters and with a flick of the wrist offered him a biscuit. Sir Sydney accepted it in one claw and carried it to his beak to nibble delicately.

  ‘Why risk returning to England, Severin – only to be arrested on your arrival?’

  ‘Ah! I see your friends have not read you the latest copy of The Gazette. One of Ralph Darling’s last official acts was to grant me a full pardon. Thanks to James Dalby and others in high places my good name has been restored.’

  ‘Gamblers all, no doubt,’ she said lightly to camouflage her shock.

  ‘Far from it. Wentworth and Dr Wardell have long championed emancipists in their Australian. The point is I am now free to travel anywhere in the world. Naturally my first port of call is Mother England, where I will no longer be persona non grata in society – but the source of amusing tales of my adventures in the Colony. I shall provide an invaluable entrée for Jean-Baptiste to meet wealthy art collectors.’

  He poured two glasses of champagne and offered her one.

  ‘Let us drink to our voyage home. The reunion of old friends – and lovers.’

  He will never let me go – until death do us part.

  Vianna barely restrained her impulse to throw the wine in his face.

  ‘Thank you, no. The last time I shared a glass of wine with you, mine was drugged.’

  A flicker of remorse seemed to register in his eyes. ‘A miscalculation on my part, Vianna, for which I apologise. The dose was meant to excite you, not to render you unresponsive.’

  Unresponsive? I was raped! She contained her rage, aware she must play this scene with care. Severin stood blocking her exit. She could not count on any man coming to her aid, risking giving offence to a titled aristocrat.

  ‘You are quite mistaken about me, Severin. I am no longer the desperate young girl you saved from a life on the streets. I have come full circle. I accept full blame for my own mistakes. But did you honestly believe that you could discard Daisy as if the child meant nothing to me? I found her grave – no thanks to you. You claim you are no monster, but when you concealed her death from me you proved you are devoid of all basic human feeling.’

  Severin’s eyes were serious. For the first time she was aware how lined and haggard his once handsome face had grown. His words were broken by a persistent cough.

  ‘You are wrong, m’dear. I too have come full circle. I am no longer the same man. It is my intention to make full reparation for the pain I have caused the only woman I have ever truly loved. You, Vianna. I now have the means to give you the life you deserve. All is arranged. New gowns, jewels, and Blewitt has hired a ticket-of-leave woman to attend you on the voyage.’

  ‘Blewitt? It would seem he has more lives than a cat,’ she said sharply.

  Severin pressed on. ‘Tomorrow, when we’ve sailed the traditional distance beyond sight of land, a priest on board will marry us. On our return to England you
will be introduced in society as the wife of the Honourable Montague Severin.’

  How ironic, from lady’s maid to a genuine Lady.

  ‘None will know your past, Vianna. We shall divide our time between a townhouse in Knightsbridge and my family’s country estate. I’ll take a box at Drury Lane Theatre, we’ll take trips to Paris to keep you á la mode, travel wherever the fancy takes us. We’ll do the Grand Tour of Europe,’ he added sardonically, ‘to whichever countries are not currently at war with their neighbour. And at journey’s end, to India . . .’

  He bent and kissed her hand. ‘Everything I ever promised you, I am at last free to deliver. All I ask in return is your companionship for a few short years.’

  ‘Why the time limit?’ she asked tartly. ‘Do you expect your fortune to run dry at the gaming tables?’

  Severin was suddenly wracked by a cough that shook his body. He withdrew a handkerchief to mop his lips. With a sleight of hand he attempted to conceal the crumpled evidence – but was not quick enough.

  Vianna stiffened at the sight. The pristine white linen was spotted with blood.

  ‘Two years at most is all I can offer you. There are no pardons granted for consumption. Like the poet Keats, I recognised the blood from my lungs – my death sentence. You see, Vianna? We must live life to the full for what little time remains.’

  The tangible sight of Severin’s mortality should have given Vianna a sense of triumph – yet she could feel nothing but emptiness.

  Severin was gently reassuring. ‘But for you, my darling, it is a gift of a new life. Marriage to me shall leave you a respectable widow, accepted at the highest levels of society. Free to marry again, a wealthy woman in your own right.’

  ‘Why me? There are many other women you could buy.’

  ‘Death makes fools of us all. You loved me once, Vianna. Don’t sentence me to die alone – and unloved.’

  Severin’s smile was so sad and disarming that for one reluctant moment Vianna saw beyond the haggard, aging face – to the elegant younger man who had made love to her the first night they met – and promised her the world.