The Opal Dragonfly

by Julian Leatherdale

  Inside was less impressive. Isobel was shown the dormitories, their beds so tightly packed it was barely possible to pass between them. She visited the chapel where the women inmates prayed for atonement; the kitchen, laundry, vegetable garden and bakery where they toiled to keep the asylum running; and the workrooms where they sorted hair and wool, and unpicked rope for oakum. In exchange for all this free labour they were clothed and fed (bread and tea three times a day, meat and potatoes twice a week). The overcrowding and poor hygiene had led to terrible outbreaks of disease and the asylum had been shamed by the press for the high death toll of children within its walls. Even with all these faults, it was still a merciful alternative to destitution, starvation and the living hell of Darlinghurst Gaol.

  Having proved her devotion to the good cause, Isobel was still keen to go to the Benevolent Society’s bazaar in the Botanic Gardens on New Year’s day. She was aware of the unsavoury insinuations that were sometimes attached to a young woman’s appearance at such public affairs. Mr dickens himself was not above lampooning women at charity bazaars. In a fit of pique, Aunt Louisa had taken down from the library shelf her copy of Sketches by Boz and read aloud to Isobel the offending passage, in which the author mocked a woman who ‘made “an exhibition” of herself…behind a counter at a fancy fair, to all and every of Her Majesty’s liege subjects who were disposed to pay a shilling each for the privilege of seeing some four dozen girls flirting with strangers, and playing at shop’.

  That was unkind and unworthy, thought Isobel. Why did men use every opportunity to belittle and make fun of women’s work? did they take nothing women did seriously? Even so, Isobel hoped that her aunt would favour her request to work at a stall at the upcoming fancy fair. But such hope was in vain.

  ‘I cannot influence the way men think, my dear, but I can protect your reputation,’ admonished her aunt. ‘Young women at fairs are exposed to the danger of scandal.’ Aunt Louisa did not have to say aloud the inevitable corollary, ‘And this family has had enough of that to deal with lately!’

  ‘Oh please, Aunt, I have worked so hard,’ pleaded Isobel. Louisa Blunt could not reproach her niece on that score. ‘I want to help out at the fair to ensure we have the success that all our efforts deserve.’ Isobel thought she saw her aunt’s stern expression soften a little.

  ‘We shall see,’ was her only concession.

  ‘Thank you, Aunt,’ she said, and even planted a small kiss on the dowager’s forehead. With still over a fortnight to go before the bazaar, she had had an idea that might tip the odds in her favour.

  That afternoon’s mail brought a note from Rosemount addressed to Aunt Louisa. It was an invitation for her and Isobel to come for dinner at the hall on Christmas Eve and stay as their guests for Christmas day. Isobel wondered what had bought on this gregarious impulse, this sudden surge of familial love in Grace. Or was this at the Major’s insistence? Following the example set by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort three years ago (and as portrayed in the 1848 Christmas edition of The Illustrated London News), the Macleods were adopting the novel custom of erecting a Christmas tree. It promised to be a splendid occasion.

  Isobel had been so busy that she’d barely had time to give Christmas a second thought. The fancywork circle was still meeting every day as the bazaar loomed ever closer, convening regularly at Faulconstone but also now and then in the homes of its other members. This was a perfect treat as far as Isobel was concerned as she gained entry to magnificent houses she had never heard of before, much less seen. She relished the thought of how jealous Grace would be of her visits to these fine houses: the gorgeous villa Mona on darling Point, the elegant Burdekin House on Macquarie Street and the lovely gem of Tusculum on the Hill, also designed by Mr Verge and recently acquired by the emancipist Mr William Alexander Long for his wife, Isabella, and their three daughters. With the fancywork circle, Isobel visited and venerated them all. She recorded in her journal: To think that before I came to Faulconstone I had nursed a real horror of social isolation and loneliness! It has all turned out rather differently—to my great satisfaction.

  She may have been ostracised by one social set but Isobel had been welcomed into another. The composition of the colony’s ruling class was like that: a series of families, each their own tribe connected through their social sphere, their church, profession, charities, industries and enterprises. Substantial wealth was the price of admission to all these Sydney tribes but one had to possess something else. In some circles it was a title, breeding, connections in London and the Colonial Office. In others it was commercial canniness, a hunger for profit and invention, a vision of a better future. All the tribes had political ambitions: they either cultivated friends or pursued careers in the colonial parliament or started newspapers and wrote muckraking pamphlets.

  Isobel did not know who the other guests were going to be at Christmas dinner (‘plain bad manners on Grace’s part,’ huffed Aunt Louisa) but she was hopeful it would be anyone but the Finches and the Bradleys, her treacherous former friends. Was it conceivable that Mr Augustus Cooper, Grace’s suitor, would be there with his parents? Had Grace’s courtship already progressed that far? Now that would be a scene worth the seeing, thought Isobel: the meeting of her father, the old soldier, and Mr Cooper, the emancipist businessman.

  She wished she could invite Mr Probius as she was sure he would make an excellent dinner party guest. She had read in the Herald that the artist had dined last week with the firebrand champion of liberty, the Reverend Lang, whose portrait he had painted to such a nicety. Faced with bankruptcy, Mr Lang had recently resigned from the Legislative Council and it was now rumoured he had plans to flee his creditors on the next ship out of Sydney.

  Despite all her efforts at sangfroid, Isobel could not stop thinking about Mr Probius. It was an undeniable case of absence and a heart that daily grew fonder. Last thing at night before closing her eyes, she would speak his name aloud as a benison in the absurd hope that he would not forget her, all the while scolding herself for her adolescent foolishness. She reasoned that he must be busy with portraits for clients, especially at this time of year. There was no evidence that her feelings were in any way reciprocated and that his interest was anything more than professional or platonic so she refused to shed tears or break her heart for him.

  No matter how weary at day’s end, Isobel sat in her room every evening, finishing off sketches she had started that morning in the bright wedge of sunlight that sloped in through her dormer window. She no longer had time for her art classes in Surry Hills. She had discovered instead a new impulse that drove her to draw religiously, day in, day out. Was it to gain Mr Probius’s flattering attention or to please him if he came to look at her work? Or was it merely the power of his suggestion that she was a woman ‘with uncommon strength of character and will, as well as prodigious talent’ that impelled her to work so assiduously? Sometimes, as she was putting the finishing touches to a piece, she would even murmur to herself, ‘So what do you think of that, Mr Probius?’ and then laugh.

  Her subjects were many and varied: faces in the street, architectural details, plants, trees, birds, cats and dogs. Vignettes of Sydney life: two lovers walking in the Botanic Gardens, a woman on horseback in Hyde Park, the gaily dressed theatre crowd outside the Royal Victoria, the raggedy children on the backstreets of The Rocks. She was never happier than when her mind glided like wind across water and the sketches came from her hand with barely a conscious thought. Snatches of her conversation with Mr Probius at the ball haunted her, talk of Rosa Bonheur and his question: ‘I have a feeling that you could be one of those women. Could I be right?’ She did not know. How could she possibly know? All she knew for certain was that she had to see him again. She believed that Mr Probius was the only way she would find an answer to that question.

  Christmas Eve arrived at last. Sydney had sweltered all day in a heatwave. Birds dropped dead on lawns, grass browned, leaves curled, flesh oozed and prickled, women squirmed
and men scratched. Everyone waited for the southerly buster like crazed sailors in the doldrums with their parched prayers, ‘Please, oh, Lord, release us!’

  How strange it was to arrive back at Rosemount as a guest, thought Isobel, as they came down the long drive in Aunt Louisa’s carriage, turning out of the forest to see the fiery disc of the sun dipping mercifully at last into the sea. It had been seven weeks since Isobel had left this beloved house but it felt like an age. Nothing much had changed as far as she could see. She knew the place so well it was as if she gazed fondly upon the face of a parent or lover in which the slightest alteration of mood could immediately be apprehended. As the coach drew up in the carriage loop, Isobel thought the house appeared watchful, expectant.

  The spectacular novelty of the Christmas tree, a tall, dark-green conifer, stood at the far end of the drawing room. Its branches had wilted somewhat in the heat but it was still an imposing sight. ‘My, oh my!’ exulted Isobel, her eyes glistening with childish glee.

  ‘Is it not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?’ cried Anna, clapping her hands with equally childish zeal. ‘I helped Grace with all the decorations!’

  ‘It is, without argument, a wonder to behold!’ boomed the Major, catching Grace and Anna in a warm embrace as he stood between them, his eyes shining with pride in the tree’s lovely glow. ‘And a credit to you both!’ Bathed in the light of thirty candles, there hung from every thickly needled branch of the Christmas tree colourful paper streamers, clusters of gilded walnuts, garlands of threaded raisins and pecans, and sweet baskets carved from oranges. Painted cameos of children and angels and a tiny chimneysweep doll for good luck completed the decorative embarrassment of riches.

  It turned out that the Christmas Eve dinner was only for the immediate family with the singular exception of Mrs Palmer, their long-time friend and confidante. It was an intimate gathering, but no less formal and extravagant for that. The epergne was fully stocked with its tower of quinces, melons, pawpaws, grapes and unripened pineapple, and the silverware gleamed smugly in the radiance of ten candles.

  The twelve-course feast consisted of every conceivable meat, roasted, broiled, smoked and preserved, but, in chief, a gargantuan chestnut-stuffed turkey. There were side dishes of sweetbread pâté, oyster soup, rice croquettes, potato pie, quail with truffles and fried smelts in tartare sauce. The Christmas puddings, each crowned with a sprig of holly and with a lucky farthing hidden in its moist fruity depths, arrived at the table, ringed with a pretty blue fire of flaming brandy. With considerable foresight, Uncle Fergus had sent them a hamper of treats months ago. ‘Look at these!’ exclaimed the Major with a boyish grin. ‘A box of lemon cheese Puff Cracknels!’ These had been mailed direct from the new Jacob’s biscuit factory in Ireland. Encouraged by the seasonal spirit of excess, Cook had also served up plates of brandied cherries, shortbread, rum balls, sugar cookies and gingerbread men.

  As she contemplated the glossy surface of Rosemount’s dining table, revealed as was customary for the profligate freight of the dessert course, Isobel saw a faint image reflected there, a trick of her imagination. It was the face of Mrs Pittman. What would she be feeding her children this Christmas? a voice whispered inside Isobel’s head. Bread and dripping?

  The dinner conversation was mostly amusing and inconsequential. Everyone present deliberately avoided any reference to the heated political debate that had recently erupted in Sydney since news arrived that, thanks to the Colonial Office, the rebellious colony of Canada had been rewarded with the precious gift of representative government while the undyingly loyal subjects of New South Wales were still denied this rightful inheritance.

  There was much well-informed banter about the triumphal debut of Mr Dion Boucicault’s five-act comedy Love in a Maze staged by Charles Kean at the Princess’s Theatre in London and the sold-out premiere of Mr Verdi’s new opera Rigoletto for the La Fenice opera house in Venice. On a more solemn note, they discussed the sinister news of the coup d’état by Louis-Napoleon, elected President of the French Second Republic, who had dissolved the National Assembly and introduced a new constitution to extend his term of office. ‘Another dictator just like his uncle, you mark my words!’ muttered the Major darkly.

  The dinner reminded Isobel of the best evenings they had enjoyed together as a family around this table. It was odd to now be a guest at Rosemount, a spectator to a drama that she had always watched from the other side of the stage. Her father looked pale and a little tired, but he was in good spirits tonight and his face full of cheer. She could not recall the last time she had seen her sister Grace so animated and carefree, except perhaps at the ball. And when Grace was happy it invariably followed that Anna was happy too.

  ‘So how are things over at Faulconstone, dear sister?’ the Major asked at last, draining a second tumbler of hot brandy and rum punch. Aunt Louisa was generous in her praise of her niece’s endeavours for the fancy fair. Mrs Palmer concurred heartily. The Major beamed at Isobel, nodding his head as if to say, ‘I knew I made the right decision.’

  ‘Well, well, I shall look forward to seeing the fruits of your considerable labours,’ said the Major. ‘I propose a toast to the New Year’s day fair and its success!’ Aunt Louisa raised her glass of ginger beer in unison with her fellow diners’ goblets of punch and wine.

  It was at this point that a bottle of French champagne arrived at the table, cradled in a bed of shaved ice inside a spectacular campagna urn–shaped pail. With its gilded, twisted handles and lovely painted studies of China roses and passionflowers, the aqua-glazed cooler was the ostentatious showpiece of Rosemount’s dessert service.

  ‘French champagne?’ Isobel looked curious. ‘In honour of something special?’ She had already guessed the ‘something special’. No one could miss the palpable air of excitement in Grace and Anna’s demeanour, quivering like foxhounds on the scent. Even so, Isobel feigned ignorance.

  ‘Tell her, Grace,’ said the Major, almost languidly.

  ‘I am engaged! I am to be married to Mr Augustus Cooper in the autumn! It is all arranged!’ Grace flung her arms about Isobel’s neck, crying for joy. Anna joined in.

  ‘Oh, my dear Grace.’ Isobel was so overcome by her sister’s happiness that she could not find the words to express her true feelings. She too wept. In this blessed announcement, Isobel found hope that the wounds that had divided the family and sent her into exile could now be healed. Grace had no reason to be bitter now. She had everything she could possibly want: a doting wealthy husband, her father’s blessing, generous in-laws and a bright future.

  Aunt Louisa and Mrs Palmer had known of this event’s likelihood for some time but they were no less affected. ‘Look at you all!’ laughed the Major. ‘So many tears and for such happy tidings!’ The glasses were all charged with the expensive fizz—even Mrs Blunt agreed to a few sinful drops in honour of the occasion—and the Major stood to make a speech.

  ‘I am the happiest of men, and the most fortunate of fathers, to see my daughter make this excellent match!’ he began, his face lit up with unapologetic pride. ‘I have had the pleasure of several meetings with my future son-in-law. I find him to be a man of great intelligence, gentlemanly courtesy and consideration, good taste and judgement. All of this evident, of course, from how wisely he has chosen his wife!’

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ Grace’s face shone with her father’s approbation.

  ‘Some may say that the alliance of the Macleods with such a family is totally unexpected and surprising. I say to them, “Not so!” That is exactly what the Macleods have always been famous for. For striking out, without fear or prejudice, into new territory.’ Applause met this observation.

  ‘I pride myself on possessing one virtue above all others. The humility to know that I still have much to learn. And so, thanks to my daughter Grace, wise beyond her years, I have learned a most important lesson, a lesson about my fellow human beings. That there is always forgiveness and hope for redemption. Was this not the lesson o
f the two thieves taught by Christ our Saviour on the Cross?’

  The Major raised his glass. ‘And so I embrace Mr and Mrs Cooper and their esteemed son with a glad and full heart. I wish Grace and Augustus every happiness and good fortune in their nuptials. And I look forward to this time next year when they will sit here with us at this table as members of one strong, united and blessed family! To Grace and Augustus!’

  ‘To Grace and Augustus!’ the rest of the company echoed as they all stood and clinked glasses.

  And then came the moment that, for Isobel at least, would later seem pregnant with foreboding. As the butler stepped away from the table with the campagna urn ice pail in his hands, his left foot slipped on a grape that had escaped the epergne and rolled onto the carpet.

  With a shout, the butler crashed to the floor. Before anyone could move or even speak, the magnificent Worcester urn, a cherished family heirloom, flew from his grip and exploded against the wall into an unsolvable jigsaw of shattered fragments.

  Chapter 23

  THE BAZAAR

  DECEMBER 1851 TO 1 JANUARY 1852

  The portentous accident on Christmas Eve resurfaced in Isobel’s dream later that night in the form of a giant mirror shattering into tiny pieces. But it did not dent Grace’s confidence in her future. Plans continued apace for her wedding day. Isobel was surprised at first at the warmth of her father’s endorsement of this match, given his previous views on emancipists. Had the trials of life and the cares of age finally worn down the Major’s famous stubbornness? Maybe it was the tragic debacle of Alice’s marriage to a blue-blooded wastrel that made this match with an emancipist’s hard-working son even more attractive by contrast.