The Opal Dragonfly

by Julian Leatherdale

  Isobel had only just turned five in January. It was absurd and unfair to accuse her of leading her two older siblings astray. ‘She didn’t have to come! None of them did!’ Isobel snapped back as they stepped into the schoolroom where the governess was waiting, her face simmering with rage. She too had been chastised for Isobel’s misadventure.

  When Isobel looked back a few months later she realised that the failed expedition to Rushcutters Bay had been a turning point. Being so close in age, Anna and Isobel had always been firm companions and allies: Anna had admired her younger sister’s spirit of daring while Isobel pushed Anna to be a little more courageous and a little less frightened. Isobel and Anna both looked up to Grace, who knew everything they needed to know about the world and their place in it. When it came to games, she was the rule-keeper; when it came to disputes, she was the peacemaker. And if the governess got cross with them, it was Grace who came to her siblings’ rescue.

  But from the day of the expedition, everything started to change.

  Or had it started even before that? Isobel eventually came to understand that it was her friendship with the little black girl that had slowly but surely pushed Anna and Grace aside, making them into her enemies. Isobel had little time for her sisters now with a new, fascinating friend to play with. None of her sisters’ stories or games could hold a candle to Ballandella’s; hunting kangaroos along the ‘darling River’ or digging up grubs for supper was a far more exciting game than playing at dressing-up and tea parties.

  As Isobel and Ballandella spent more time together and grew ever closer, Anna’s heart curdled with jealousy. She found solace for her hurt in the safekeeping of Grace, and it was in these circumstances that Anna and Grace became inseparable, their betrayal by Isobel a bond between them. How comforting to have someone to blame for life’s disappointments!

  And to make matters worse, Anna’s outbursts started to become increasingly unpredictable and frightening. Most of the time she chose to ignore Isobel altogether but every now and then Anna would corner her in the nursery, spitting words of abuse under her breath, and even pinching and scratching. Grace would chastise her, of course, lest their governess overhear and report these transgressions to their mother. But Isobel could tell that Grace was only protecting herself from punishment. It was clear that over time she and Anna were becoming more firmly united in their hatred for their little sister.

  Such was to be Isobel’s fate.

  Nearly a year had passed since the memorable day that Ballandella came to Grangemouth. day by day, like an insect emerging from its pupa, she was growing into a well-mannered Christian woman. She attended church on Sundays, walked out with the Macleod women on weekdays or sat up in the family trap. Her reading progressed to short poems and hymns, and she played scales and simple pieces on the piano and could hold a tune with some help.

  But it soon became clear that not everyone regarded the Major’s experiment as a worthy one. A well-known squatter who served on the Legislative Council encountered Major Macleod one morning on Macquarie Street on his way to work.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you raising a gin as a Christian?’

  ‘It is a scientific experiment, sir, designed to show that the native has the capacity to adapt to our civilised ways given the right persuasion and training.’

  The squatter stared at the Major with an expression that left little doubt he thought the man insane. ‘It is unnatural and absurd, sir. Everyone knows the blacks are little better than wild dogs who should be chained up or shot at every opportunity.’

  ‘do you really think so, sir?’

  ‘I suppose you would have them own land and sit in parliament with us next? Is that the logical end to your experiment?’ The squatter was red-faced with rage, his lips flecked with spittle. ‘And I suppose you believe, sir, you can educate these brutes out of spearing our cattle, burning our crops, killing our farmers and raping our women? You are a menace, sir. Everyone says so. The gin should be sent back to her tribe where she belongs. Your so-called “experiment” is an obscenity.’

  The Major did not reply and the squatter walked on. He was not surprised by such opinions—they were common enough in the colony—but taken aback at the white-knuckled, hot-blooded rage of its expression from a gentleman. It was not as if the Major did not know about the savagery of the natives; he knew more than most. But he refused to admit that the only solution was the complete extermination of the race.

  Winnie had come to him the other night with her own concerns. ‘I am deeply worried, Angus. Grace tells me that Isobel and Ballandella stay up all night talking. She even saw them creeping about in the grass yesterday with no shoes on. Carrying spears fashioned from grasstree spikes, no less! God forbid, I fear that our youngest is turning native.’

  The Major looked at her, puzzled. ‘You think so?’

  ‘did you really think that bringing a black girl into our house would change nothing?’ asked Winnie. ‘Isobel has always been impressionable. And adventurous. Is it so surprising that she, of all our daughters, would find an Aborigine an object of beguilement?’

  Winnie was right. It was exactly Isobel’s nature to be so curious. And bold.

  While the Major congratulated himself on his experiment’s success, Isobel knew better. She could tell that the transformation of Ballandella was neither permanent nor complete. Over time, there were more and more occasions when the homesick girl let the trappings of civilisation fall away. In the privacy of the nursery at night, it was Isobel who could hear her playmate singing low in her mother tongue. In the melancholy hours before sunrise, it was Isobel who had her heart pierced by the sound of wailing through the nursery wall. And then one morning, the gardener saw Ballandella wandering naked through the estate and alerted Mrs Macleod. Isobel grieved for her friend with good cause. She worried for her state of mind. She wondered how much she had changed.

  And then one spring morning, only six weeks before Christmas, Isobel woke up and knocked on Ballandella’s door. There was no answer. She pushed the door open and found Agnes, the maid, pulling sheets and pillowcases off the bed. The little bookshelf by the bedhead was empty, as was the wardrobe nearby.

  ‘Where is she?’ Isobel asked, feeling a tight fist of panic crushing her chest.

  ‘She’s gone, Miss,’ the maid answered. ‘Left by coach early this morning.’

  Ballandella and Isobel had taken supper together the previous evening. Her friend had made her laugh with the greedy gusto of her consumption of jam and bread. They had brushed their hair, said their prayers and gone to bed as usual. Nothing different, nothing out of the ordinary. It had been a busy day and Isobel slept soundly. No dreams.

  So where was Ballandella? Where was she now?

  The Major explained it all to her over breakfast. Concerned about the native girl’s increasing bouts of melancholy and restlessness, he thought she would prosper more in a rural setting. Something more akin to her home country. After careful consideration, he decided to consign her to the care of his good friend Dr Nicholson who owned a cottage on the Hawkesbury. There were some blacks who lived and worked in the district and she would soon find new friends. He promised that Isobel could write her letters.

  ‘It is for the best,’ the Major counselled.

  Isobel cried for days after that, but only in private. She refused to give her sisters the satisfaction of seeing her heartbreak. Over the next few weeks and then months, Isobel wrote to her friend, desperate to hear some news and keep their friendship alive. But to her bitter disappointment she received no reply except for a short note from Dr Nicholson reassuring Isobel his charge was happy and well.

  Isobel continued to write letters to Ballandella but fewer and fewer as time wore on and any hope of ever seeing her friend again sputtered and died. Even so, to herself Isobel made a solemn promise that she would never forget her ‘Minhi’. Her little sister.

  Chapter 8

  THE LOVE TOKEN

  MAY 1841 TO DECEMBER 18
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  She may have been only seven but Isobel would always remember the night her father presented Winnie with his most lavish love token. He had decided to make a ceremony of it, announcing to the family during dinner that he had a surprise for them. And for his ‘beloved Winnie’ most of all.

  At the conclusion of dessert, the Major instructed the servants to set up extra oil lamps and candelabras on the sideboard and mantel. ‘I shall return shortly.’ There was a delicious air of anticipation after he left the room. Alice, Grace and Anna swapped guesses in excited whispers as to what the surprise might be. Their brothers teased with ridiculous suggestions. An emu rampant stuffed by Mr John Hancock, perhaps? A Parian bust of Governor Darling to grace the mantelpiece?

  The Major made his entrance with a stately slow march. His sons joined in the fun, drumming their fingers on the tabletop and humming ‘The British Grenadiers’. The Major stopped, snapped to attention in front of his wife and bowed low. Isobel noticed he was wearing his white parade gloves and had something hidden behind his back. Cupping his wife’s hand in his own, he gallantly pressed her fingertips to his lips. It was then he produced a crimson velvet jewellery case from behind his back and presented it to Winnie.

  There was a hush as Winnie opened the lid. Her face changed to an expression of astonishment and tears dropped from her eyes. She looked at her husband with such sweet and tender affection that Alice and Grace too began to weep. Isobel did not really understand the cause of these tears of happiness but she felt her eyes begin to water.

  ‘Oh my! Angus, my darling, it is so…beautiful.’

  There was a slight quaver in her voice, the faintest note of discord that went unnoticed by her proud husband but did not escape the sensibility of her daughters. A fleeting exchange of glances, a flicker of recognition, made it clear that something was not quite right. Even little Isobel could feel it. Winnie lifted the object of her gaze from its velvet case for all to see. It was breathtaking. In the bright light of the candles its fluid play of colours hypnotised every eye.

  It was an opal dragonfly.

  The gift was to mark the Macleods’ thirtieth wedding anniversary in two weeks’ time. The Major explained that it had been fashioned by one of London’s finest jewellers, whose skill had produced an artwork of more subtlety and refinement than anything Winnie or her daughters had ever seen.

  A dragonfly made from opals—what a wonder! Isobel had always loved dragonflies. Unlike the aimless meanderings of butterflies or moths, dragonflies moved with absolute purpose, as swift as lightning bolts, to some fixed point in the air where they then hovered in perfect stillness. They were not gaudy like butterflies either. Except when they flashed rainbows in the sun, their wings were as transparent and pure as water.

  Isobel stood next to her mother, studying the brooch closely. The insect’s large compound eyes were two matched globes of black opal; its thorax and long segmented abdomen were also black opal, flashing sparks of red and blue, gold and green. The double pair of forewings and hindwings were outlined in silver and the mosaic of panels within each wing was also delineated in fine veins of silver, with delicate slivers of white opal imitating their pearlescent film. The entire masterpiece fitted neatly inside the palm of Winnie’s hand.

  Isobel had never seen anything so lovely. Within these gemstones there blazed liquid flames of blue, green, red, pink, gold and orange. Their unearthly fire reminded her of glow-worms, tiny methane-blue stars in the night blackness of a cave.

  ‘Where on earth did you find these opal stones, my dear?’ Winnie asked her husband.

  ‘My third expedition. They are my little secret. Just for you, my love. Australian opals! Can you believe it? The jeweller in London was astonished to learn such stones existed. I don’t believe anyone in the colony has seen stones like these.’ The Major beamed at his wife almost boyishly. It was obvious he had been planning this night for a long time.

  The happy occasion was shattered by a shriek. It was Anna. She had backed away from the table and now covered her eyes as if blinded by the sun. ‘No, no, no,’ she cried. ‘Take it away, take it away! It will bring nothing but misery.’

  Winnie looked at her husband, his face fixed in a rictus of shock. Trust Anna to blurt out the secret kept by every woman in the room. Except, perhaps, innocent little Isobel, her eyes as big as saucers. The others all knew what every woman knew: opals were bad luck.

  The Major had read two short scholarly histories of the opal but neither had made any mention of their association with ill fortune. He had read how they had been used for adornment for centuries, how they were attributed special healing and spiritual powers. Arab folklore claimed they fell from heaven in lightning flashes and the early Greeks believed they conferred the gifts of foresight and prophecy.

  What the poor Major did not know was that their reputation for bad luck in folklore and medieval superstition had only just resurfaced, as recently as 1829. It was all the fault of the author Sir Walter Scott and his lurid novel Anne of Geierstein, or The Maiden of the Mist. Therein an enchanted princess, Lady Hermione, wears an opal hair comb, which, when touched by holy water, has its ghostly fire extinguished. Hermione then falls into a faint and is borne unconscious to her bedchamber. The following morning, nothing of her can be found save a pile of cold ashes!

  Thanks to Sir Walter, the opal’s unholy ‘curse’ gripped the world’s imagination. Within a year the sales of Hungarian opal had slumped to half their normal volume. These sensationalist associations were to haunt the lovely stones for years afterwards. How could the Major possibly know about this story? thought Winnie. Novels were frivolous distractions for the amusement of women. Winnie knew the superstition was preposterous but this did not change the fact that opals had fallen completely out of fashion.

  Anna cowered in the corner. With the Major’s moment of triumph ruined, his face began to redden with anger. Winnie hastened to reassure him. ‘Silly girl, I don’t know what gets into her head sometimes!’

  Even Isobel could tell that her mother was lying for Papa’s sake. ‘It is the loveliest gift any woman could ask for, my love. I shall wear it always. Next to my heart.’

  Winnie motioned for Grace to quickly escort her distraught sister from the room. Grace did so but let Mama know with a withering look that she was not fooled by this charade for one minute. Anna’s impulsive outbursts were an open secret in the Macleod family, tolerated as much as was possible but never spoken about. Thankfully, on this occasion they had saved her father’s pride and spared her mother acute embarrassment.

  But the question remained: would Winifred tell her husband the truth or would she risk being seen in public wearing a brooch made of unlucky opal?

  The answer came a fortnight later. To celebrate their wedding anniversary, the Macleods were hosting a ball at Grangemouth, intended to be a highlight of the season. The guest list boasted some of the colony’s most distinguished public figures and their wives and offspring, including Lieutenant-General Maurice O’Connell, Commander of the Forces, and Major Thomas Bunbury of the 80th Regiment of Foot.

  There was much excitement among the Macleod girls. In the upstairs drawing room Alice and Grace examined themselves in the mirror and finessed their hair and jewellery. Anna and Isobel had been recruited to stand by and admire. Alice’s gown was rose pink with a broad sash to emphasise the smallness of her waist and a lacy pelerine was draped over her shoulders. The bell of her skirt brushed the boards as she twirled across the floor on satinslippered feet. Grace’s gown was lilac with blue irises and a sky-blue tippet. New feathered bonnets had thankfully arrived from Madame Ponder’s millinery in George Street just in time that morning or there would have been drama and tears.

  Oh, how splendid her sisters both looked, thought Isobel, a little jealously. It would be many years before she would be allowed to wear a gown as fine as these.

  ‘Well, don’t you look bang-up to the mark!’ barked Anna. The others rolled their eyes and hushed her. She
was in the habit of picking up all kinds of vulgar expressions from the convict servants and loved to upset everyone by dropping them into conversation.

  ‘So who do you think will amuse you the most, tonight?’ Grace asked her older sister. ‘I believe that Lieutenant Ludlum will be here with other officers of the regiment. Such a fine figure of a man, don’t you agree? And so charming.’

  Alice snorted. ‘I am not so in love with these redcoats as you, my dear sister. They have such a high opinion of themselves it hardly matters what I think. A few minutes of your lieutenant’s bragging will drive me outdoors to hide in the garden!’

  ‘What a terrible snob you are!’ scoffed Grace. ‘You have no respect for Papa’s fellow officers.’

  ‘I protest! I respect them deeply, I do. They just don’t…suit my temperament. Give me a dull man with prospects in business or government any day of the week over a soldier. Or even better, a baronet with an annuity of ten thousand pounds.’

  Isobel felt that giddy mix of nervousness and delight that often came over her around Alice and Grace. While there had been much bad blood between her and Grace in the past, some of its rancour had faded in the last year or so. Or at least that was what Isobel fervently hoped. Anna continued to make Isobel nervous with her sudden explosions of rage and cruel taunts but the family all conspired happily to disregard the seriousness of Anna’s ‘strange’ behaviour. And so life at Grangemouth continued in its harmonious and well-regulated track with little to disturb its comfortable rhythms.

  ‘don’t listen to her. She is utterly unromantic!’ Grace cried, jabbing an accusatory finger at Alice. ‘I swear your heart is an abacus. It clicks only when totting up a man’s assets and income.’