Gilbert had grown distant, his outbreaks of temper frequently leading to sharp punches and hard slaps for Isobel. The once strong-minded, independent girl dreaded his moods, but quickly learned nothing pacified them and the slightest thing could set him off. She knew he drank heavily, and his gambling was eating away at her dowry, but who could she turn to? Who could she tell? And even if there was someone – there could be no solution. Gilbert was her husband. They were bound together until death.
Within three months of their arrival in London, he had moved into his own bedroom so he didn’t disturb her when he came in late, and although she realised it gave him the freedom to come and go at all hours it was an arrangement that suited her.
His visits became more rare as the years went on – especially when she was expecting her first child. Gilbert seemed to find her repellent as she swelled up and waddled about the house, and she didn’t mind that at all. The baby growing inside her was precious, she didn’t want him anywhere near her. But she was bored with London, bored with sitting about the house all day, and couldn’t wait to hold her first child in her arms and give it all the love she would have given her husband if only he’d been kind and faithful.
Henry was born in the winter of 1840. The birth was far easier than she’d expected, and when she discovered she was pregnant again the next year, Isobel looked forward to having another little baby to love.
Her second son Clive was born at the height of the summer. His fair hair and blue eyes reminded her of the wheat fields and cornflowers of home, and she loved him with a passion. Gilbert became more distant and his visits to Isobel’s room ceased. He had the sons he wanted.
The two little boys were always fighting. Henry was sturdy and square-shouldered, his grey eyes fierce as he bullied the younger, more pliant Clive who liked nothing better than to be with his mama. Gilbert enjoyed the boys once they were walking and talking, and would take them out in his carriage and show them off to his friends. Isobel was never invited and would site dolefully at the window, awaiting for them to return.
It was late in the evening four years later that her world crumbled. She had helped the nursery nurse put the boys to bed, had kissed their cheeks and read them a story before blowing out the candles. Now she was sitting in the drawing room, her tapestry sampler stretched on a frame in front of her, the firelight bringing a warm glow to the chilly, north-facing room.
The front door slammed and the rapid thud of boot heels on the marble floor made her put her tapestry away quickly. Gilbert was in a bad mood. She could always tell.
She sat there, her hands neatly folded in her lap, her gaze never leaving the drawing-room door. Her breath was tight in her chest but she lifted her chin and tried to compose herself. At least the boys would be asleep by now, she thought. They won’t hear anything if he gets violent. She began to tremble, her eyes wide with fear.
The door slammed open and he stood there silhouetted by the light from the hall. It was too reminiscent of her wedding night and Isobel’s skin crawled.
‘We’ve got to leave,’ he shouted. ‘London’s done for me.’
Startled, she clasped her hands, her knuckles white against the dark bombazine of her dress. ‘Leave?’ she gasped. ‘Why should we leave? This is our home. You chose it especially because it was convenient for the officers’ club.’ She bit her lip. Gilbert didn’t like to be questioned.
He strode into the room and stood before her. ‘Notice anything unusual about your husband, wife?’ His colour was high, his eyes bright with rage.
She glanced swiftly at him. ‘Your jacket …’ she began hesitantly.
‘That’s right. They tore off my epaulettes and broke my sword over their knee.’ He ripped off the jacket and threw the empty scabbard on to the chaise-longue. ‘I’ve been cashiered,’ he stormed. ‘And all because Father refuses to stand by me.’
Isobel sat frozen to her chair despite the heat from the fire. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what he wanted to hear. So she said nothing.
Gilbert loomed over her. ‘Did you hear what I said, woman?’ he roared. ‘The Army have given me a dishonourable discharge. I’m finished. Finished!’
She flinched as his spittle flecked her cheeks. ‘But they can’t do that,’ she whispered. ‘You’re an officer and a gentleman.’
He sneered, then turned on his heel and reached for the tantalus. Unlocking the polished oak box, he helped himself to a large brandy from the crystal decanter. ‘Was,’ he snarled before draining the glass and refilling it. ‘A so-called fellow officer told our commander I reneged on a gambling debt and tried to recoup my losses by cheating. I’ve just had to sit through what’s laughingly called a court martial.’
Isobel watched as he drained yet another glass of brandy. She wasn’t surprised to hear he’d been cheating or that he’d not honoured his debts. Yet she was surprised his father hadn’t helped smooth things over as usual. She looked through her lashes at him. ‘Perhaps your papa will help once he’s had time to consider the consequences,’ she murmured.
Gilbert threw the crystal glass to the floor, making Isobel jump as the glass shattered and flew across the polished boards. ‘Like hell he will,’ he stormed. ‘Father has washed his hands of me, he said so this afternoon. And the alternative he’s suggested is so appalling I won’t even contemplate it.’
Isobel shrank into the depths of her winged chair. Gilbert was now very drunk, swaying on his feet, his large hands balled into fists. ‘Alternative?’ she whispered.
He stared at her, his expression grim, his blue eyes almost colourless. ‘Hell’s teeth,’ he swore. ‘I married a mouse. A little brown mouse without an ounce of sense,’ he sneered. ‘Sit up, woman,’ he roared. ‘Talk so I can hear you. I’m sick of your whining and cowering.’
Isobel eased herself out of the chair. It was safer to be standing if he lashed out – the chair would imprison her and she would have nowhere to run. ‘What’s the alternative, then?’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘Why is it so terrible?’
‘Father has offered to pay passage for us to Australia,’ he sneered. ‘I’m to be a remittance man – the unwanted black sheep who’s been sent to the other side of the world because he’s just too embarrassing to keep at home.’ He rocked on his heels. ‘What do you think of that?’
The words dripped like ice into her consciousness. Australia was a wild, untamed country where convicts wore chains and natives carried spears and ate one another. Surely Gilbert’s papa was jesting? Surely he didn’t mean for his grandsons to be brought up in such a desolate place? As for her own father, she knew he didn’t have the income to help – not now he’d moved in with Cook and Mama took her revenge by shopping.
‘What about the children?’ she stuttered. ‘What about their education?’
‘Damn the children,’ he shouted. ‘What about me? I’ll be the laughing stock of London by the time morning comes. We have to leave tonight.’
Isobel was almost overwhelmed with a sense of desperation, and it made her brave. ‘You can leave, but the children and I will remain here,’ she said firmly. ‘We can join you once things are in order.’
‘There’s no money unless we all go,’ he rasped. ‘The lease on the house is almost up, and apart from your jewels, there’s nothing of value here.’
Isobel frowned? ‘No money? What about my dowry, and your income from the military? Or my engagement ring? We could sell it.’
He swept his hand through his hair. ‘Gone,’ he said brokenly. ‘And I sold your ring a long time ago – that’s nothing but glass. We have nothing but Papa’s charity. You see there isn’t really any alternative. We must leave England for New South Wales, or end up in the debtor’s prison.’
Her hands covered her mouth as she thought of that terrible place where women and children sold themselves for a crust of bread and men lay in their own filth, beaten by life and the impossibility of ever escaping their debts. ‘Then we must go, and quickly,’ she breathed. �
��I’ll wake the servants.’
Isobel slammed the door behind her, the tears already running down her face as she climbed the stairs to the nursery. Gilbert deserved everything he had coming to him, but why should she and the children be punished? Life was bitter and unfair, and although she had no idea of how she could do it, she made a silent vow to make the best of things and see her sons didn’t follow their father’s nefarious ways. Australia would be a new beginning, far away from everything she knew and understood, but maybe it was a chance to do things differently. To find the independence she’d once had and the strength to make a new life.
*
HMS Swift arrived in Port Adelaide on 1 July 1845. Isobel stood on deck with the children and watched the approaching coastline. The sea was very blue, sparkling like the sapphires Mama used to wear at her throat. The surrounding hills fell in a dark green tumble to the pale yellow sand of the beaches, and the huddle of low buildings around the dockside were masked by the tall masts of sailing ships and by strange-looking trees.
Gilbert’s voice startled her, she hadn’t heard him come up on deck. ‘There should be a man waiting for us with supplies,’ he said pompously. ‘These colonials seem to have the measure of things, and Lady Fitzallan has arranged for a bullock driver to take us north.’
She looked up at him. ‘Lady Fitzallan? I seem to remember the name but I cannot place the face.’
‘A friend of Mama’s,’ he said as he eased a finger around his tight collar. ‘She came out here several years ago. It’s a parcel of her land we’re renting until we can find somewhere better. The Barossa Valley is a wine-growing area, evidently. Mama says their wine is rough but beginning to make a reputation for itself. Quite fancy being a vintner – will make a change from the military.’
Isobel bit her lip. Gilbert had no experience with wine other than drinking it – they were heading for failure even before they began. ‘Does this land have a house?’ she asked hopefully.
He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter if it don’t,’ he said carelessly. ‘Convict labour’s cheap. We can soon have one built.’
She looked out across the water. The colours were so bright. The amazing light of this southern hemisphere seemed to enhance the beauty of this new world. Yet her spirits were low for there was no way of knowing what the future might hold for any of them.
19
Cordelia was still breathless after her angina attack, but she insisted upon getting out of bed and was now sitting in a comfortable chair on the back verandah, watching the activity in the stables. She had woken several times during the night to find Wal at her side, his hand loosely clasped in hers, and she had drifted off again, safe in the knowledge she had finally found the peace she’d been looking for all her life.
The air was thick with humidity, and although the storm had threatened rain, the clouds were light and fluffy in the wide blue, with no promise of a downpour. She stared out to the terraces where John Jay and his sons were walking the lines, testing the grapes prior to the harvest. It was a scene that had been with her all her life, and one she would gladly take with her into the next.
Leaning back into the cushions, she closed her eyes and thought about her divided family, and her hopes for the future. Wal had told her Sophie had been given the letters, so perhaps she would understand the rift – yet there was another rift to come – she could feel it in her bones, and there was nothing she could do about it. If her plan failed to re-unite the family and make it strong again, this journey would have been for nothing – and all the journeys of all the previous generations would have been wasted. For those early settlers from their different backgrounds made Jacaranda Vines what it was today – and if it foundered, she would see it as the ultimate betrayal.
She thought about Rose and John and Isobel and Gilbert. Poor Isobel, such a delicate little soul, so lonely and out of place in this vast country, and yet she’d found the inner strength to succeed where Gilbert had failed, and had made a life for herself and her children.
Her thoughts drifted back to a past beyond her memory – to the days when her own great-grandmother was close to dying and felt the need to reveal the final strands of her divided family.
She conjured up the images of those long ago days – the team of dark red bullocks, their horns wrapped in sacking, their wide backs swaying as they pulled the laden carts along the dusty tracks that led north into the wilderness. She could see the bullocky man, with his fearsome whip and his agile, lean figure leathered by the sun and wind as he coaxed the great beasts through deep rivers and encroaching bush.
They were scenes lost forever in the rush for modernisation. And yet, as she sat there in the cool shade of the verandah, she thought she could still hear the ghosts of the men who followed those long, lonely trails, and the slow, steady plod of oxen. Thought she could still make out the rumble of wagon wheels in the bull-dust, and feel the isolation her forebears must have experienced – for the essence of Australia hadn’t changed – or the spirit of the men and women who lived in the Never-Never.
*
Isobel and Gilbert travelled for many days behind a bullock team. The dust rose from the beasts’ hoofs trampling the wallaby track, covering their clothes and hair in a fine veil of ochre, choking their throats and stinging their eyes. Sweat stuck their heavy English clothes to their backs, flies swarmed and mosquitoes bit as they jolted along.
The bullock man was taciturn with a face that rarely smiled and hands which could encompass a trunk or barrel with ease. Yet it didn’t seem to Isobel that he was a man of ill temper for his quiet voice kept the beasts under control and his horny hands were light on the reins. He chewed tobacco and spat great gobbets into the surrounding bush, but at night could be persuaded from his almost endearing shyness to regale them with stories of his adventures in the outback. These story sessions were of much delight to the two little boys who were in danger of running wild before they reached the homestead.
Isobel was silent for most of the journey, knowing they were travelling further and further from civilisation to a life she couldn’t imagine. Gilbert’s resentment never left him, and the fear of being marooned with him in the middle of nowhere was something she didn’t allow herself to contemplate. For if he could be violent towards her in London, she dreaded to think what he might do in this vast, lawless, empty place.
Yet threaded through that trepidation was the excitement building in her, a thirst for knowledge about the startling birds and strange trees and the funny little bears that sat in those trees and dozed with their babies on their backs. The giant leaping red animals made her smile and the ponderous lurch and roll of the wombat reminded her of the badgers back home in Wilmington.
She refused to dwell on thoughts of home, for unless a miracle happened she would never see it again – yet at night when she could hear the wild dogs howl and the chilling cackle of the kookaburras echo through the bush, she longed for the mist and the rains of England and the mournful lowing of cows underlying the shriek of seagulls.
The journey came to an end at last and in shocked silence they looked at their new home. Isobel saw the great sweep of land stretching as far as every horizon. Could feel the furnace blast of heat rebound from the black soil into the soles of her thin shoes. Could hear only the mournful caw of giant rooks that hovered above her and the chattering cackle of the red and blue parrots that swarmed in great clouds over the deserted land. She turned at last to the dilapidated tin shack that sagged against the lower hill.
‘Tell me that isn’t the house,’ she said under her breath as she took in the rusting corrugated iron, the termite-chewed posts which held up the rotting verandah, and the broken shutters that hung drunkenly from the single window. There was no front door, no glass in the window, and the chimney was a crude metal tube protruding skywards from the tin wall.
Gilbert glowered, a frown etched on his sun-burned brow, his hair bleached almost white from their days in the open wagon. ‘So much for favours,’ he mu
ttered. ‘Mama said nothing about living in a hovel.’ He turned his back and began to unload the cart. It was as if by not looking at it, things might improve.
Isobel bit down a bitter retort. There was no point in telling him he’d brought it upon himself. But tears were threatening, the hopelessness of it all weighing heavily on her. She looked down at her boys. Their little faces were dirty, their eyes bewildered as they waited for her to reassure them. Smearing away the tears, she took a deep breath, gathered up her skirts and picked her way to the verandah through the rubble and debris that had obviously been left behind by the previous owners. Wary of rotting boards and the dangerous tilt of the whole edifice, she looked into the iron shack.
It was even worse than she’d thought and her spirits, already low, plummeted. The shack consisted of two rooms. One for sleeping, one for cooking. A broken table was the only item of furniture and a monstrous black range squatted in the corner. Thick cobwebs veiled everything. There was a sweet smell of decay mingling with the suffocating heat that bounced between tin roof and dirt floor.
Tears welled again and she angrily brushed them away. She couldn’t let her boys see how exhausted and frightened she was. She would have to turn this disaster into an adventure and do the best she could. For they had no servants and no money – Gilbert would be hopeless. It was up to her to make a success of this place.
She stood there in the shade of the broken-down building and looked around her. Despite the awful reality of what they had become, there was a raw beauty here, she realised. An untamed promise of something that could be wonderful if only Gilbert could overcome his hostility. And as she watched the children help the bullock driver, she knew this place would give her far more than the empty life of London. She might not have the luxuries of England, but here, in this vast, empty country, she would be free to use her mind as well as her hands and energy. Free to rediscover the sense of adventure she’d always known was within her. Free of the restrictions her birth had necessarily enforced.
Jacaranda Vines Page 31
