The Governor's House

by J. H. Fletcher

  Thank goodness for the creek, she thought. If worse came to worst, there was always that. He still had his boat – not the hoy in which they had first made love all those years ago but a dinghy. If needs be he could get away in that. There was nothing to worry about; it would take more than a wildfire to destroy her indestructible man, her Mungo, her love. Brave thoughts while she sat with hands clenched in her lap, the hours passing with the speed of snails while fear lapped at the edges of her mind. Periodically she went outside to look but there was nothing new, only the flame-red sky and the intolerable whistling of cicadas in the scrub.

  The dawn came with the wind gusting hot from the south and black fragments of burnt-out embers whirling. She waited for the phone but it did not ring. She thought of Mungo trying to get through and how angry he would be when he could not. Of course he couldn’t, she thought. The telephone line would be burnt out.

  Mrs Rigwood came with apprehensive face, offering breakfast, but Cat shook her head. At eight she tried the exchange. There was no answer and Cat could have hurled the telephone across the room.

  Mrs Rigwood brought coffee and some fruit. ‘You must eat,’ she said.

  She was right, of course. Cat made an effort, managed to cut up a pear and force it down, swallow a cup of coffee.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Mrs Rigwood said.

  ‘Of course he will.’

  At nine she tried the exchange again. Still nothing. Ten minutes later the telephone rang. Cat grabbed it.

  ‘Mungo?’

  It was not Mungo but a man she did not know.

  ‘Mrs Mortimer?’

  ‘Yes?’ Her instinct, her frozen and immobile heart, knew.

  ‘Sergeant Shawcross, Kingston Police here, Mrs Mortimer…’

  ‘He is dead, isn’t he?’

  Strange how confronting the unbearable cut it down to size, if only for that moment. Her mind was stunned and silent. She was neither breathing nor believed she ever would again, yet was still able to absorb what the troubled voice was telling her.

  ‘I am so sorry –’

  Rage flared, as red as the fire-scorched night. ‘What are you sorry about? It’s not your fault, is it?’ Then recovered. ‘I beg your pardon, Sergeant Shawcross. Please go on.’

  The flames had come down the valley with Jackson’s Landing directly in their path. The paddocks too had been ablaze, as were both banks of the creek, the waterway blocked by falling timber.

  ‘There was no way out at all.’

  Parnell the manager, Parnell’s wife and Mungo had been trapped.

  No way out.

  The house was gone. Everything in it. There was nothing left.

  The piled books; the piled memories.

  Nothing left.

  I should be so lucky, she had said.

  The sergeant was still speaking. ‘There was nothing anyone could have done. No one was to blame.’

  As though blame mattered now.

  ‘And the bodies?’ Cat was surprised how calm her voice was.

  Three bodies had been recovered.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  The sergeant was saying something about a funeral, arranging for the bodies to be prepared for burial, but now there were only tears and a drawing down of blinds. She put down the telephone very quietly and went into the bedroom. She lay on Mungo’s side of the bed and breathed in deeply. The scent of the man made it seem he had just gone from the room.

  The Parnells had no relatives in Australia so Cat gave instructions that the three of them would be buried side by side at Jackson’s Landing. ‘I shall arrange headstones for them,’ she said.

  Laura disapproved. ‘Surely Dad’ – she had recently taken to calling him Dad – ‘would prefer to be buried here, at the house?’

  Not for quids would she put her tongue around Cat’s Kingdom.

  ‘No,’ Cat said. ‘I loved him from the day I met him and shall love him till I die. He was happy with me here but Jackson’s Landing was his home before he met me. It was still his home. We shall bury him there.’

  They travelled down as a family to farewell him. Like all bushfires, this one had been selective in what it had destroyed. Swathes of timber were unscathed, others were a black ruin. The graves lay between the site of the house and the stone hut over the well where Cat had hidden after they had pirated Antares. She remembered her terror and how Mungo’s voice had summoned her back to the light.

  ‘His fingers are all over this land,’ she said. ‘It is the right place for him to lie.’

  Some trees had survived, surrounded by scorched ground but still there. She looked up at the leaves, some heat-shrivelled but others talking in their leaves’ voices in the gentle breeze. She quoted something she had read recently, the saying of an American general who had been killed the year Edmund had been born.

  ‘Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.’

  Her voice was steady, her eyes dry. She walked away and did not look back. Unseen in her breast, her broken heart wept.

  ‘I truly believe she cares about no one but herself,’ Laura whispered to her husband.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  It was a stone world she came to after the first anguish had dulled. She was seventy, then seventy-one, then three years older than that. The ache was still there, like the ache of a once-fractured limb. It had mended, after a fashion. She hobbled but life went on.

  It was just as well; there were things she still had to arrange. The legacy, first of all. Cat had watched her son-in-law over the years and knew Justin was a capable businessman. She had also decided he was a man she could trust. She summoned him to Cat’s Kingdom and offered him a one-quarter interest in the business if he would hold the fort until Kitty came of age.

  ‘I know you have existing commitments,’ she said, ‘but it would be helpful to me if you could. I intend to leave Mr Fitch a five per cent interest in my will,’ she added. ‘So he can keep an eye on things.’

  ‘In case I decide to steal everything?’ said Justin, grinning.

  ‘It never hurts to have a legal brain on your side.’

  Justin got up and walked to the window before turning and walking back to his chair. And again to the window, his blond hair tousled where his hands had combed it.

  Cat watched his troubled back. ‘If you feel I am burdening you with too much responsibility you must say so.’

  He looked at her, his face a shadow against the light from the window. ‘It’s not that. You built your empire from nothing but I am a rich man’s son. I’m not afraid of hard work but I am afraid of letting you down.’

  ‘If I hadn’t faith in you I wouldn’t have offered it. I shall teach you all I can but as you already know when you run a business your decisions have to come out of yourself. No one can teach you courage or judgement.’

  Still Justin hesitated. ‘I know you will have thought this through…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Edmund won’t take it kindly.’

  Cat was calm about it. ‘I believe it is the right decision for the business and the family.’

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  ‘It would be cowardly not to.’

  ‘Be ready for fireworks,’ he said.

  Edmund was like a dog in an unfamiliar house, sniffing in corners.

  His mother had invited him for lunch. Something to discuss, she had said. It could be good news, he supposed, but the taste of the air was not encouraging.

  It was a good lunch and he did it full justice. The wine was good, also; he fancied himself a connoisseur of wine. Of living too, Cat supposed.

  ‘So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

  Cat was gauging the moment to break the news to this man whom she had always had difficulty in seeing as her son.

  ‘How is the job going at the Governor’s House?’

  ‘Bearable, I suppose.’ So he dismissed the opportunity that Mungo had twisted arms to get for him. ‘There is nothing to get my teet
h into,’ he complained. ‘No scope. And Gooch has always had it in for me.’

  Gooch was Sir Henry’s private secretary.

  ‘I’ve always found him a reasonable man,’ she said.

  ‘You never were a judge of character,’ said her disagreeable son.

  Cat told herself to be patient. ‘It is strange how that building has played such an important role in this family’s life,’ she said.

  He looked at her, pretending an interest he did not feel.

  ‘I was there when they first started to build, you know. I saw them lay the first stones.’

  ‘Did they use women convicts as labourers?’ Contempt was not far away.

  ‘I was a servant at the property next door. I watched it go up, stone by stone.’ She smiled nostalgically. ‘I thought it was wonderful to have such a fairy-tale palace next to us. It was always more to me than a building; it stood for everything I wanted in life. To be well off and respected… The Governor’s House was like a dream in stone. The day I went to live there I thought all my Christmases had come at once. And now you work there too.’

  She saw from Edmund’s expression that her reminiscences had bored him.

  ‘I am sorry you’re not happy there,’ she said.

  ‘What I need is a chance to get ahead.’ He cocked a speculative eye at her. ‘Give you a hand, maybe? Take some of the burden off your shoulders? You aren’t getting any younger, Mother.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that any of us were.’ She looked at him and wondered how it was possible to go so blindly through life. ‘You think you would be up to the job?’

  ‘Why not? It’s just a question of keeping an eye on things, isn’t it? You employ people to do the actual work.’

  She wondered which irritated her more, his ignorance or his complacency.

  ‘You think that is all there is to it? Reading reports and adding up figures?’

  ‘Well, isn’t it? I don’t see you with a pickaxe, digging tin out of the ground. You want technicians, you hire them. Easy enough when you’ve the money. I would have thought I was more than capable of that. Laura was saying only the other day…’

  The exhausting struggle through the bush to reach the mountain of tin discovered by Theophilus Jones. The white-knuckle negotiations with lawyers, financiers and engineers that had been needed to establish the Haggard Mine and prevent its being stolen from her. Staying back on the day of dear Mungo’s last journey to Jackson’s Landing because of business decisions that had to be made. The courage and determination to keep pressing forward into unknown country, never knowing what pitfalls might be waiting. Motivating staff to give of their best…

  Reading reports and adding up figures? Did he really think that was all there was to it?

  ‘You are right,’ she said, her voice hard. ‘It is time for me to start handing the burden on.’

  ‘Now you’re talking. When do I start?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘You don’t. I have offered the job to Justin and he has accepted.’

  She had expected repercussions. Now she got them: a screaming fit with Edmund’s face port red and words like betrayal and disloyalty flying like spears.

  ‘Your own flesh and blood. Is that all you think of us?’

  If he had thought his rage would make her back off he was mistaken. All her life she had stared down trouble; she did so now.

  ‘Justin has both experience and judgement.’

  ‘And I don’t?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you do.’

  ‘You know what you’ve done?’ he told her. ‘You’ve destroyed this family.’

  In business she had learnt to be hard but the family had always been close to her so Edmund’s accusations cut deep. She could even feel herself bleeding for this flawed man who was her son, her blood, the promise of a future that had somehow turned sour… No, she thought, not turned sour. I did what I could with him and for him but it was never enough. Our relationship was sour from the beginning.

  ‘The more you talk like this,’ she said, ‘the more I know I have made the right decision.’

  ‘So Laura and I and the children get nothing when you die?’ he said. ‘Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘I am not saying that at all. You will not run the business because I do not believe you could do so successfully. What you inherit from me when the time comes is another matter altogether.’

  ‘If anything,’ he said.

  Cat would not take a backwards step even for that. ‘As you say. If anything.’ Yet she did not want them to part like this, with harsh words festering. ‘Come and walk with me along the cliffs,’ she said. ‘You know I saw an albatross the other day?’

  But he would not. She stood with the sea at her back and watched him ride away, shoulders burdened with resentment. It was sad but it had been the right decision, and no Mungo to share it. I am really getting old, she thought. It would not have bothered me half as much once.

  There remained the question of the crown. How well she remembered its beauty, the jewels gleaming as she closed the lid for the last time. She remembered too the terrible days that had led to her finding it. Nowadays I couldn’t survive the way they treated me but I was young then. Brave and I suppose beautiful. Almost half a century ago, she thought. My dear life.

  She would never see the crown again but wanted it to remain in the family, if that was its wish; Edmund and Laura would sneer, thinking she had lost her marbles, but she had always believed in such things since the old gypsy’s prophesies had come true.

  But who could she trust to go looking for the crown? Edmund and Laura were obviously out. So was Myrtle. Justin wouldn’t do either. Running the businesses was a full-time job; he couldn’t spare the time to go treasure hunting. Neither could nineteenyear-old Edward, also tied up with the business. In any case she didn’t really know Edward well enough to entrust him with such a matter. No, Kitty was her only hope but at eleven she was still far too young.

  What Cat had to do was wait. When Kitty was old enough – eighteen, say – she would tell her the story of the missing crown. It would be up to Kitty what she did about it: either go searching for it or abandon it. From what she knew of her granddaughter Cat did not believe she would abandon it.

  But in another seven years Cat might still be alive but equally might not. What she had to do was leave Kitty a message without Edmund finding out about it, for that she was determined to prevent.

  She considered her options. She could leave a letter with Mr Fitch to be given Kitty on her eighteenth birthday; that would the easiest way. But the lawyer was two years older than she was and had told her he planned to retire at the end of the year. She didn’t know his partners and was not prepared to leave such a letter with them; once she was dead there would be nothing to stop them opening it and making off with the crown themselves. The banks were no better. The Bank of Van Diemen’s Land had not been the only bank failure in recent years; there was no certainty with the banks.

  What she had to do was write Kitty a letter that only she could understand. But how? She thought about it and eventually came up with a solution. She would wait a little longer; then, in a year or two, she would start doing what had to be done.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  It was a game, sending secret messages that no one else could understand.

  ‘The words are funny,’ said twelve-year-old Kitty. ‘Did you make them up yourself?’

  ‘It’s a private language I learnt on the St Vincent. They called it cant. It was a way for the convicts to talk to each other without anyone else knowing what they were saying.’ Unlike Kitty’s mother, Cat had never attempted to hide her past. She smiled. ‘The guards hated not knowing what we were saying. They even tried to ban it but had no luck.’

  ‘But you couldn’t write in those days.’

  ‘I learnt later. You’d better not tell your mother I’m teaching you convicts’ cant. I doubt she would like that.’

  Laura would shrivel up a
nd die if she knew, but lots of things had that effect on Laura. Thank God I was never so fussy, Cat thought.

  They exchanged secret letters every day. Trivial bits of news, what they’d done and what they’d had for supper: things like that. None of it meant much but it was fun and in no time Kitty became as expert as Cat. Each message ended in the same way. O bina te. I love you.

  ‘Although bina really means like, not love,’ Cat said. ‘There is no word for love in cant.’

  Holding each other in the darkness of the swaying hold, hearing the sea licking along the other side of the planks, thinking of the uncharted depths of water beneath them. Kissing. Touching. Oh my love. O bina te.

  Oh Martha… They had saved each other, all those years ago. But she had heard that Martha had been abandoned by Mrs Conroy and had later died, some said by her own hand. Cat had wept when she had heard, as though a portion of herself had died too. But all that was past.

  Later she taught Kitty another trick.

  ‘Book codes are used by spies. In the American Civil War they used them. And I believe in the Crimean War too. But you both have to know which book you’re using otherwise it won’t work.’

  That was easy too. The conspiracy of shared secrets spanned the years between them, bringing them close.

  When Kitty was fifteen she went on holiday with a friend, Belinda Royal. They went to Sydney where Belinda’s aunt and uncle lived. Belinda had been there before but for Kitty it would be a great adventure.

  ‘There is a boy who’s keen on me,’ Belinda said. ‘Wait till you see Ben.’

  They giggled together at the idea of a boy who might be keen.

  Belinda was a giggler who wrote confidences to friends on violet-scented notepaper, because it was superior. But she could not speak cant or would have wished to, even if she’d heard of it. So Kitty, who was quieter than her friend, felt superior too, in her way. Belinda had not asked to read Grandma’s journal but Kitty had brought it to show her, if her friend proved worthy.