The Bushranger's Wife

by Cheryl Adnams

  ‘Jack, don’t be defeatist—’

  ‘You heard that witness today,’ he stopped her. ‘You saw the looks on the jurors’ faces. They didn’t believe Harold’s attempt to show reasonable doubt. The witness saw me, and no one else. And that judge has already made his mind up about me.’

  ‘You can’t give up, Jack.’

  ‘I need you to go.’

  ‘Go? Go where?’

  ‘Take Henry, pack up your things and go to Geelong.’

  ‘Geelong? Why in God’s name would I go to Geelong?’

  ‘I have a house there.’

  ‘You have another house? How did I not know this?’

  ‘I’ve had it for a long time. Before I even met you. I set it up as a safe house, just in case …’

  ‘Just in case?’

  ‘In case something like this ever happened. No one else knows about it. Not even Bobby.’ He pulled his hands out of hers and back through the bars. ‘There’s a loose brick to the left of the back door. The keys are there. In the fireplace, there is a metal box with enough pounds to last you many years. If you’re careful—’

  ‘Jack, stop!’

  ‘You have to go tonight,’ he continued to talk over her denials.

  ‘No,’ she shot back. ‘I won’t leave you. Not now, not ever.’

  ‘If I go to prison—’

  ‘Then I’ll come and visit you. But that’s not going to—’

  ‘I won’t see you.’

  Her hurt gasp had him faltering. The shattered look on her face broke his heart.

  ‘Pru, if I go to prison, you and I …’ He had to get this over with and fast. Before he could change his mind. ‘I won’t have you wasting your life and love on me. You and Henry deserve better than a bushranger who would have hung eventually. This was my fate, Pru, it always was. You simply delayed it when you came into my life. I can’t thank you enough for the time you gave me. But it’s over now. You should go. Go home to Henry, pack your bags, and go to Geelong. And never look back.’

  Tears tracked down her face, and he bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from moving back to comfort her.

  ‘No,’ she said definitively. ‘I won’t go. Push me away all you like, but I’ll never leave you. Don’t you give up on me, Jack Fairweather. If you go to prison, we’ll think of something. If Viktor can break out, you can too. I’ll talk to Bobby.’

  God she was incredible. A bushranger’s wife to the core.

  He took in her pretty face, the stubborn set of her jaw. ‘They’ll be sending me to the new gaol. It’s a fortress, impenetrable, they say. No one can escape from there.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  He shook his head, turned his back. ‘Goodbye, Pru.’

  ‘Jack, please—’

  ‘Constable!’ Jack called, bringing the guard in from the office. ‘We are done here. Please escort the lady out.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow in court.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘I love you. No matter what happens.’

  The clang of the outer gate closing heralded the end of his life. Unless Harold could pull out a miracle in court the next day, he would go to prison. Whatever happened to him after that didn’t matter. He would lose his family. His life was over.

  ***

  Pru was furious.

  Tears had filled her evening, and all the while Katie had tried her best to console her. But when Henry had woken for a feed, and she’d stared down into his bright eyes, so much like his father’s, her sorrow turned swiftly to anger. He may have given up, but she would never. She was resourceful and she was smart. She was also the wife of a bushranger. And that bushranger had friends.

  Putting Henry down to sleep again, she made a strong pot of tea and moving back to the dining room with Bobby and Katie, they got to work. The table was covered with maps as they planned. It had been a long night, and none of them had gotten any sleep.

  Now sitting in the courtroom on a hot October morning, exhausted, her plan in place, her need to be calm battled with her righteous fury when Jack was led back into the courtroom. His eyes met hers quickly and narrowed with confusion. If he’d been expecting her to still be crying and simpering like a scorned wife, then perhaps he didn’t know her at all.

  Taking a deep breath, she rose as the judge entered the courtroom and the players took their places. And the breath whooshed out of her, taking all of her fury-inspired strength with it, when Harold called his first witness of the day.

  ‘The defence calls Mrs Deidre Stanforth.’

  Chapter 18

  Pru could only stare, caught between confusion and horrified shock, as her grandmother walked through the doors into the courtroom.

  ‘Close your mouth, Prudence,’ Deidre instructed, as she walked down the aisle towards the stand, her walking stick clacking against the hardwood floors with a marching cadence. ‘And that’s Lady Stanforth to you, boy,’ she directed snootily at Harold. ‘As the wife of the late Earl of Carrington, I still deserve the title.’

  Jack spun in his seat to look wide-eyed and questioning at Prudence. She shrugged and shook her head. She had no idea what her grandmother was doing here. And testifying for the defence? Her gran hated Jack. She was up to something. Pru had no idea what that might be, but it terrified her to her core.

  She had no doubt it had occurred to her gran that putting Jack in prison would mean she and Henry would be forced to go home to Carrington Manor. There was no way in hell that would happen. If her Gran’s testimony put Jack in gaol, Pru would make sure she never saw her or Henry again. Even if it meant living in squalor. She could get a job to support herself and Henry until Jack came home. If Jack came home. If he was convicted, he’d most likely hang. Tears threatened as she thought of Henry, that he might never know his father.

  The Bible was held out and her gran swore the oath to tell the truth. What truth? Pru wondered, her mind reeling. Her gran knew nothing about the situation. Pru fidgeted nervously in her seat while Deidre sat still as a statue, her back ramrod straight, her expression unreadable.

  ‘Mrs …’ Harold began and then paused. ‘I beg your pardon, Lady Stanforth.’

  Deidre nodded from her position on the stand, clearly pleased that he had used her title.

  ‘You are Mrs Prudence Fairweather’s grandmother, is that correct?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And is it true that your granddaughter, Mrs Fairweather, ran away from her family home at Carrington Manor?’

  ‘Yes,’ Deidre answered. ‘She married that dreadful man over there. The defendant.’

  Pru’s heart sank. Her grandmother was going to ruin everything. She saw Jack slump in his chair.

  ‘You oppose your granddaughter’s marriage to Mr Fairweather?’ Harold continued.

  What was he doing? Pru stared wide-eyed at Harold. He was their defence attorney and he was feeding Jack to the wolves.

  ‘I do oppose the match,’ Deidre went on. ‘It is obvious to anyone with eyes that she married beneath her.’

  ‘So it is safe to say that you hold no love for the man now on trial for murder,’ Harold went on.

  Pru’s stomach roiled with nausea.

  ‘I have no love for a man who would steal an old lady’s only granddaughter from her,’ Deidre went on, her voice wavering slightly. ‘A granddaughter whom I raised from birth and gave all the love and care I knew how.’

  Tears welled in Pru’s eyes as her grandmother spoke. She looked quite a bit older than when Pru had left Carrington Manor. So much had happened in that time. Marriage, a baby. Pru hadn’t paid much attention when they had run into Deidre in Melbourne. She’d been in too much of a rush to get away, fearing her grandmother would try to take Henry from them. Now as Pru took a good look at her, she noticed her skin was thinner, translucent almost, and more wrinkled. Her eyes had lost much of their severity, and she looked at Pru with a sort of sadness. The anger she’d held on to for so long towards her grandmother lessened. But it didn’t change the
fact that she seemed to be here to set fire to her husband’s already flimsy defence.

  ‘And do you believe that Jack Fairweather is capable of murder?’

  ‘I believe the man to be capable of many things,’ she said and Pru closed her eyes, horrified that her own grandmother was going to be the one to put her husband in prison.

  ‘However, as much as I disapprove of the man,’ she began, her voice strong and steady again. ‘The only thing criminal about Jack Fairweather is that he cheats at bridge.’

  ‘Bridge, Madam?’ Harold questioned.

  ‘Yes, it’s a card game, Mr Renstein.’

  ‘I know what bridge is.’

  ‘Then why did you ask?’ she responded, shifting impatiently on the hard wooden seat.

  There were some titters of laughter around the courtroom, but Pru could only stare, dumbfounded at what she was hearing. What was the old woman up to?

  ‘Order,’ the judge called, bringing quiet once again to the room.

  ‘Tell me, Lady Stanforth, where were you on the morning of Monday fifteenth of September?’

  ‘I was at home at Carrington Manor.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No, my son’s wife, Alicia, was there, as were the staff,’ she paused. ‘Along with my granddaughter and her card-cheat of a husband.’

  More whispers, louder now, filled the court.

  ‘Order!’ The judge struggled to bring the court into line, so banged his gavel on the wooden table. ‘Order in the court.’

  ‘Are you saying that there was no way that Jack Fairweather could possibly have shot and killed Viktor Petrovic because he was with you at the time of the murder?’ Harold asked. Pru thought his surprised incredulity seemed forced and she suddenly smelled a plot.

  ‘Why else would I be here, you silly man?’ Deidre tossed back with a huff. ‘Do you think I make it a habit to enter courtrooms for the pleasure of it? It is true I dislike my granddaughter’s new husband, but it would be against my honour not to speak out in his defence should I have reason to do so.’ She huffed with impatience. ‘My granddaughter, and that man, arrived at Carrington Manor on the night of the fourteenth of September. We enjoyed a meal of lamb shanks. My son, Robert, raises his own livestock. It was slightly overcooked, but it’s hard to find good staff out here in the backwater.’

  ‘Lady Stanforth,’ the Judge interrupted her monologue. ‘The evidence, if you will?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Deidre gave him a tight smile. ‘We played bridge with my son’s wife, Alicia, until around ten that night, at which point I retired to my bedchamber and Prudence and that man were shown to the second floor guest quarters.’

  Pru’s eyes nearly popped out of her head as the courtroom erupted in astonished discussion. It was a lie. A bald-faced lie. Gran was lying for them? Why? What could she possibly gain by ensuring Jack’s freedom?

  Jack turned in his seat again to stare at Pru stupefied, but she was so bewildered herself all she could do was blink.

  She noticed Gran was keeping Robert out of it. Had he decided he didn’t want to be part of the fabrication? Or perhaps he had been away in Melbourne on business again and was happily ignorant of the fairy-tale her grandmother was weaving.

  ‘What time did Mr and Mrs Fairweather leave Carrington Manor the next day?’ Harold asked, holding the lapels of his jacket as he paced the courtroom. Pru thought he looked a cat that got the cream. She only hoped he could pull it off.

  ‘We enjoyed luncheon on the south-facing patio, before Mr Fairweather took his wife and child back to the bush house where they choose to live.’

  Gran knew where they lived? She’d been sure after they had run into her in Melbourne that she would do whatever she could to take Henry from them. The thought had terrified her, and she had known where they lived all along?

  The judge wrapped his gavel again to halt the murmurs in the courtroom.

  ‘Lady Stanforth,’ Judge Collins addressed her. ‘Can anyone else corroborate your story?’

  ‘My word is not enough?’ Her steely-eyed gaze had the judge sitting back a little in his seat. Pru had seen many a man cower at that look. Deidre sat up straighter, and again Pru could see how old she was looking. Just sitting in the uncomfortable seat was clearly taking its toll on her.

  ‘You may ask any of the staff at the manor. They were excited to see Prudence back home, even for one night.’ At this point, Deidre moved her gaze out across the courtroom and connected with Pru for the first time, her expression softening into one of weary sadness. ‘They’d missed her, you see.’

  Pru swallowed hard against the lump that formed in her throat. Was Gran saying she’d missed her? Was she using the servants as a cover to tell her just how much she’d missed her? Her grandmother had never been very good at showing emotion. Stiff upper lip of the aristocracy, and all that.

  ‘Mr Renstein, we have not yet heard from Mr Fairweather in this case,’ the Judge said. ‘I’m assuming should he be questioned, he would provide the same story?’

  ‘He would, Your Honour.’

  ‘And why did he not explain this story to the arresting officer …’ The Judge searched his notes. ‘One Sergeant Carmichael?’

  Carmichael stood in the gallery behind the prosecutor. ‘Your Honour, Mr Fairweather waived his right to speak in his defence. He did not offer an alibi at the time, but was determined to keep quiet on the matter.’

  ‘No wonder you thought him guilty.’ the Judge frowned. ‘Mr Fairweather, stand please.’

  Jack stood.

  ‘Is Lady Stanforth telling the truth?’

  ‘Why would I lie?’ Deidre interrupted, huffing with irritation.

  The Judge ignored her. ‘Mr Fairweather.’

  ‘She is telling the truth, Your Honour,’ Jack answered. ‘My grandmother-in-law and I share a rocky relationship and I am sure she would be happy to see me put away in prison for the rest of my life.’

  Pru couldn’t argue with him on that count.

  ‘I didn’t offer Lady Deidre as a witness as I was unsure if she would testify on my behalf, or line up to tighten the noose herself.’

  The judge looked to Deidre. ‘I believe I understand your hesitation, Mr Fairweather.’ His smile dissipated when she turned cold eyes on him. He cleared his throat. ‘Members of the court, in light of this evidence, from such an esteemed member of the community, I recommend this trial be dismissed. How say you Crown Prosecutor? Do you have any evidence to conflict with the testimony of Lady Stanforth?’

  The prosecuting attorney stood. ‘Not at this time, Your Honour.’

  Pru felt hope bubble up as the judge banged his gavel one last, glorious time.

  ‘I want to thank the jury for their time in this matter. Case dismissed.’

  Noise erupted in the courtroom and Pru rushed down the aisle to where Jack was shaking hands with Harold.

  ‘I don’t know how you did it,’ she heard Jack say quietly to Harold.

  ‘Well, you’d provided no alibi for yourself, so I knew it couldn’t be disputed if I were to find you one.’ Harold winked and tapped his nose before moving away so that Pru could embrace Jack.

  ‘Oh, Jack.’ She kissed him and squeezed him to her.

  They kissed again more fervently, all their fear, their heightened emotions, rolling into relief and passion as they held each other.

  ‘Alright, that’s enough of that. A public courtroom is not the place for such debauchery.’

  Separating from Jack, Pru met the hard gaze of her grandmother who now stood before her.

  ‘How …? What …?’

  ‘Speak properly, child,’ Deidre scolded and glanced around the courtroom at the many law officers still present. ‘And not here. I need some air. This courtroom is musty. It’s not good for my lungs. Shall we take a stroll?’

  ‘Of course, Grandmother,’ Pru said, suddenly feeling like a belligerent teenager again. She enfolded her fingers in Jack’s and they followed Deidre out of the courtroom.

  The d
ay was hot and Deidre’s parasol was up before the sun hit her. They walked in silence to a nearby park where Deidre placed a handkerchief on a park bench before sitting.

  Pru sat beside her and Jack stood.

  ‘Grandmother, I don’t know how to thank you,’ Pru said. ‘How did you even know about the trial?’

  ‘It was in the paper.’

  ‘I am indebted to you, Lady Deidre,’ Jack added, still holding Pru’s hand. ‘Whether you believe this or not, I did not kill Viktor Petrovic.’

  ‘I don’t care if you did or you didn’t,’ Deidre shot back. ‘The world will hardly miss another thieving bushranger.’

  Pru and Jack crossed glances. If only she knew.

  ‘But that’s not why I perjured myself on the stand.’

  ‘Then why?’ Pru asked, still amazed by her grandmother’s extraordinary behaviour.

  ‘Because I want to be able to see my great-grandson,’ Deidre admitted, losing some of the harshness in her tone. ‘And I knew this was the only way you’d let me close to him,’ she hesitated, looked uncomfortable. ‘Or let me close enough to say that I am sorry, Prudence, for lying to you all these years. I should never have kept you and your mother apart. I thought I was doing the right thing. I see now, too late, that I was wrong.’

  Pru was speechless. It still hurt that she had never had the chance to know her mother. But she could no longer go on punishing her grandmother for mistakes made over twenty years ago.

  She leaned in to kiss Deidre’s papery thin cheek. Her grandmother had always been an old woman, but she was elderly now. Reconciling with her seemed the kindest and only thing to do.

  ‘I forgive you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, well. I’ve learned enough about you and your obstinate ways to know that if Fairweather was convicted, the two of you would run.’

  ‘Well, I …’ Pru blushed and Jack gave her a questioning look.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be mad,’ she begged him, standing and moving him away from her grandmother’s keen ears. ‘I wasn’t going to live without you, Jack. And what’s the point in having friends who are, shall we say, wise in the ways of illegal activities, if you can’t ask them to bail someone up for a good cause?’