The Opal Dragonfly

by Julian Leatherdale

‘Will be gone.’

  Chapter 24

  WEDDING PLANS

  JANUARY TO FEBRUARY 1852

  Isobel had returned to Faulconstone on the night of the bazaar in a state of high anxiety bordering on terror. By a supreme effort of will she managed to keep these feelings hidden from her aunt, who was still in a triumphal mood. Aunt Louisa had calculated that the funds taken for the Benevolent Society bazaar were in excess of a hundred and fifty pounds, a small fortune, of which Isobel’s painting alone accounted for a sixth.

  This generosity was remarkable at a time when Sydney was still reeling from the madness of the gold rush and the exodus of thousands of people like floodwaters down a giant drain: servants walking away from masters, crews abandoning ships in the harbour, husbands deserting wives, businesses closing their doors for lack of staff and custom. Charities were never busier rescuing the flotsam of this flood tide: broken families, bankrupts and beggars and, flowing back to Sydney in an ebb tide of bitter disillusionment, the failed diggers who had gambled and lost everything on the promise of easy fortune.

  In the privacy of her room, Isobel sat on the bed contemplating her mother’s brooch, the old woman’s prognostications sounding in her ears. Much of what she had said touched on Isobel’s life with a startling degree of accuracy (how could she know so much?) but there was also a great deal that simply made no sense. She sketched the old woman’s face, the sinister play of light and shadows that had made the scene so menacing.

  In the daylight hours of the following day, Isobel’s feelings of horror seemed less credible and potent than they had in the fortune teller’s tent at twilight. Her initial fear began to yield to anger as she suspected she was the victim of some low trick. Was it possible that this woman was acquainted with someone Isobel knew? Was this a conspiracy bent on giving her a nasty fright? And if so, why? She had lost faith in the Misses Finch and Bradley but could not imagine why anyone would want to scare her. She told herself that the only alternative explanation—that the opal dragonfly had, by some mystic means, revealed the truth of Isobel’s future—was too preposterous to be taken seriously.

  Grace’s wedding plans preoccupied Isobel’s two sisters for the next four weeks. The service was to be held at St James’ followed by a wedding breakfast at Rosemount. While Isobel now had time to resume her lessons, she was also engaged in her new commission for Mr and Mrs Cooper, preparing sketches for an ink and watercolour study of their beloved Juniper Hall. As the hall was only a short distance from Faulconstone, Isobel could walk there by herself. The summer heat remained oppressive and the winds blew strongly over the ridge in Paddington. Isobel carried her parasol like a shield against the blast and sought refuge from the sun under the jacaranda trees near the sandstone walls of Victoria Barracks.

  It was here, on her first excursion to the hall a week after the bazaar, that she encountered Mr Probius, walking in the opposite direction. He was on his way to the barracks to paint a portrait of Lieutenant Colonel Bloomfield, commanding officer of the 11th Regiment, commissioned by Sydney’s mayor. The city still owed this fine gentleman a debt of gratitude for the way he had kept the peace back in 1845. At the request of the Governor, he had sailed with his regiment from Hobart, disembarked his troops at Circular Quay and marched them smartly up George Street with bayonets fixed to put a stop to a mutiny of the garrison soldiers of the 96th Manchester Regiment. One of the officers serving under Bloomfield that day had been none other than Captain Ralph Tranter.

  ‘Why, it is Miss Macleod, the renowned artist. What an unexpected pleasure!’ cried Mr Probius as he drew near. Such a splendid sight he made! Isobel took in the ensemble of his elegantly tailored outfit: his deep blue claw-hammer morning coat and matching blue silk waistcoat, the broad linen cravat, the striped dove grey trousers, the black Chelsea boots and the lemon chamois gloves. In his right hand he sported a mahogany walking cane, its ivory handle worked into the profile of a mallard duck.

  ‘The pleasure is mutual, Mr Probius,’ said Isobel warmly. ‘I was hoping I might find you at Juniper Hall this morning. I am about to begin my sketches for Mr Cooper.’

  ‘Yes, so he told me. I do apologise I am not free to welcome you there properly. I am engaged this morning at the barracks. The lieutenant colonel has made time for a sitting.’

  ‘He should make a handsome subject for a portrait.’

  ‘By the time I have finished he will,’ quipped the artist. Isobel laughed. She could not begin to imagine what a fraught business a portrait commission must be.

  Without warning, the wind renewed its vigour with a hot, dry gust. Isobel’s pretty cream parasol was torn from her hands and wheeled along the street like a child’s hoop. Mr Probius gallantly gave chase and returned the fugitive parasol to its owner. As she took it from him, his fingers brushed lightly against hers. She felt her heart race at this touch and discovered that she wished they had lingered there a moment longer. Thoughts that could only be described as wicked came unbidden to her mind and she hoped that her face did not betray her desire. ‘This infernal wind!’ she exclaimed and blushed at her own blasphemy.

  ‘I quite agree,’ concurred Mr Probius. ‘This wind is definitely hot enough to be infernal. Let me escort you to the hall. The commander will indulge me a small delay.’

  ‘Oh, you are too kind,’ protested Isobel. ‘I do not want to make you late for your appointment. I shall be perfectly fine now you have rescued my parasol, thank you.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he replied with a courteous nod. ‘With your blessing, I hope to call on you and your guardian as soon as my duties allow. I suspect we will have much to discuss after your preliminary sketches today.’

  ‘I shall very much look forward to that, Mr Probius.’

  Isobel made no effort to disguise her warm interest in his impending visit. This man had won over her aunt with his charm and gallantry and, propitiously, her own sister was about to marry into the family that regarded him with pride and affection. There seemed no obstacles to furthering her friendship with Mr Probius. And many reasons to be hopeful.

  With great reluctance Isobel bade him farewell and proceeded on her walk. Less than ten yards along the street, she could feel that almost imperceptible weight of someone’s attention trained on her. She paused and glanced over her shoulder, hoping to steal a glimpse of her handsome friend and patron.

  To her astonishment, Mr Probius had also stopped at precisely the same moment. He was standing in the shade of a jacaranda tree to observe her retreat along Old South Head Road. They looked directly at each other. A wide smile spread across Mr Probius’s face and he waved. Isobel did the same. And, her heart giddy with happiness, she kept walking.

  Now that the bazaar was all done and Isobel had more than proved her devotion to good works, she was free to resume her lessons in Surry Hills and Woolloomooloo. And so it came to pass that at Mrs Arnold’s German class two days later Isobel first heard the unexpected glad tidings. ‘Fanny Macleay is to be married!’ her classmate Philomena informed her breathlessly. The banns had just been promulgated at St Mark’s and the wedding day was fixed three weeks hence. Isobel was surprised at how moved she felt on hearing this news.

  ‘I am so happy for her!’ she exclaimed, supressing tears of joy. She pictured her only meeting with Fanny by the ponds at Rosemount when she was a girl of ten. She clearly recalled Fanny’s facetious comparison of a dragonfly as it emerges from its pupa to a young woman’s ‘coming out’ into society, when she falls prey to the attention of suitors pouncing to ‘gobble us up in the jaws of matrimony’. Who was the gentleman who had ‘gobbled up’ the bookish botanical artist, just turned forty years of age? His name, reported confidently by Philomena, was Mr Thomas Carlton Hungerford. He had once worked as an assistant to Mr Macleay when he was Colonial Secretary.

  Isobel was greatly heartened by this intelligence, which she took as a sign of encouragement in matters of the heart. She had heard the gossip that Fanny had rejected several proposals in the
past so she had presumably agreed to this match with good reason. Isobel was in no doubt that Fanny valued her own liberty and interests too highly to give them up for the sake of pleasing society or saving her ‘reputation’. She must love Mr Hungerford. Or at least they must have interests in common and souls in sympathy sufficient to sustain a marriage. At least that is what Isobel hoped.

  If the Major had heard this news it would be unlikely to have produced the same warm feelings of approbation. The Governor had informed him only two days ago that the Major’s old enemy, Mr Macleay, Fanny’s father and the chair of the inquiry into the Surveyor-General’s department, would submit the panel’s report to the Governor by September. As part of his already heavy workload, the Major was engaged in writing a report on the state of the roads across the colony, which he now regarded as a defence of his career as Surveyor-General. These roads were his proudest legacy, the main arteries of trade and traffic that pumped goods and people into the burgeoning settlements at Newcastle in the north, Bathurst and Orange out west, as well as his Great South Road to Goulburn and the city of Melbourne, the capital of the newly created colony of Victoria.

  Meanwhile, the Major had made a momentous decision, which Aunt Louisa conveyed to Isobel that evening in the front parlour at Faulconstone. ‘“As soon as Grace’s nuptials are concluded, I intend to book my passage to England,”’ she read aloud from her brother’s letter.

  Isobel gasped. This was astonishing news! But why?

  ‘“As there has been no word about Alice and her little boy, Xavier, either from the Twyckenham family or from my brother, Fergus, I have applied to the Governor for a leave of absence on urgent family matters.”’ Isobel had no doubt that Uncle Fergus, as conscientious and resolute as his brother, had done everything within his power to contact Alice. The lack of communication did not encourage hope and had weighed heavily on her father’s conscience. Isobel knew Papa would not rest until he had rescued his eldest daughter and his newborn grandson from whatever disaster had enveloped them.

  His letter also detailed how, while he was abroad, he would conduct more trials of his patented ‘boomerang’ ship’s screw and oversee the printing of the journal of his fourth expedition. His labours, physical and intellectual, were indefatigable.

  Aunt Louisa continued: ‘“I shall be abroad when the commission’s report is released in September and can only hope that my absence may make some people more appreciative of the value of my leadership and hard work.”’ Isobel could not shake a sense of foreboding on hearing this news and the old soothsayer’s words came unbidden into her mind: ‘Your father is now lost to you. His love is lost to you. His protection is lost to you.’

  ‘Of course you will be welcome to stay here while he is away,’ reassured her aunt. ‘I see no reason for you to hasten back to Rosemount. You have your commission over at Juniper Hall and can still attend church and your lessons as before. The ladies of our charity committee value your contributions highly, as you know. And, to speak plainly, I have grown quite fond of your company myself, dear Isobel.’ Aunt Louisa was not given to professions of sentiment of any kind, so this admission took Isobel off guard.

  ‘Why, thank you, Aunt. I feel the same.’

  But even as she said this, she felt a chill enclose her heart. Her brief exile from Rosemount had just become a longer sentence. That very same morning she had at last received a short letter from her brother William, penned quickly and posted from the small settlement at Moreton Bay where his ship had put in months ago to pick up passengers and drop off mail and supplies. William had responded to her plea for ‘good counsel’ regarding her exile from Rosemount:

  Dearest Sister,

  As one who feels exil’d himself from the warmth and comfort of my family Home, I sympathise with your unhappy situation. I can only advise you to bear your new circumstances with your habitual courage and be reassur’d that, harsh as Father’s regime may sometimes strike us, I sincerely believe he acts out of Love for his children and in the belief he serves our best interests. I will write you again as soon as we make Madras.

  With greatest affection etc.,

  William

  Post-script: When I refer to your ‘habitual courage’ I cannot help thinking of the time you and Joseph and that little black girl went on ‘an expedition’ to Rushcutters Bay! Do you remember? Joseph certainly does! Father was quite forgiving of his little ‘explorer’.

  Isobel smiled to think that both her brothers recalled this episode. She was flattered, of course, by William’s faith in her courage but still yearned to return to her proper home. Faced with her extended exile, Isobel empathised for the first time with the profound homesickness that a convict must feel, far from the country and family he or she loved. She had only one reservation about the prospect of going home. While Grace had been kinder to her of late in her newfound happiness, Isobel was reluctant to put this fragile peace to the test in her father’s absence. And anyway, presumably Grace would move into her own house with her new husband after the wedding. What then would become of Anna? Surely she could not stay all alone at Rosemount.

  It was true that Isobel’s time at Faulconstone had been more tolerable than she had anticipated and even enjoyable thanks to the fancywork ladies of the Benevolent Society, but even this could not completely displace the longing she felt for Rosemount. Again, the words of the soothsayer came to her: ‘There are women. In a circle. They protect you. They protect you now. They are your sisters. Your new sisters.’ Isobel shivered every time she thought of the old woman and her prophetic riddles. Try as she might to dismiss them as nonsense, her words resurfaced repeatedly in Isobel’s mind. She dared not share them with anyone lest they think she had become as mad as her sister.

  Poor Anna. She was to be pitied, thought Isobel, though she could be so cruel and unreasonable at times. While Anna had joined in the general chorus of jubilation that greeted the news of Grace’s nuptials, it did not take much imagination to see that Grace’s marriage spelled the end of her and Anna’s close (one could even say conspiratorial) sisterhood, which over many years had grown fast and intertwined like ivy and stone. Anna’s bond with Grace went beyond conventional sibling love. It had become a dependency and the prospect of its ending threatened Anna’s very existence.

  Cocooned in premarital bliss, Grace seemed deaf and blind to the torment endured by her sister. Anna had begun to unravel in ways that were all too familiar. Temper tantrums, bullying the servants, opening and closing curtains for no reason, rearranging furniture, pacing back and forth furiously in the drawing room, the hall, the carriage drive, talking to herself, sleepwalking and, of course, finding fault with Isobel. Her outbursts of abuse directed at Isobel had grown ever more vile and threatening.

  On one of her rare visits to Rosemount, in the second week after the bazaar, Isobel had offered to help with any aspect of the wedding plans that Grace cared to assign her.

  ‘She’s just trying to interfere,’ Anna accused in a venomous, hurt voice. Isobel felt the slap of this rebuke as if her sister had struck her. She chose not to respond.

  ‘You’re just trying to be nice so Grace can’t tell how jealous you are about her wedding,’ hissed Anna, her eyes narrowed to hateful slits, her hands clenched as if ready to claw at Isobel’s eyes or squeeze her throat. Isobel knew how Anna looked when the madness took hold of her. Like a rabid dog, a creature in the grip of a blind, violent fury.

  Grace tried to calm her. ‘Now, now, sister dear. do not be so unkind,’ she soothed, stroking Anna’s hair and speaking low. ‘She means no harm, I assure you.’

  Usually when Grace intervened in this manner to keep the peace, these pats and strokes and calming words would suffice to restrain Anna’s fit of temper. But not on this day. Anna looked entrapped, cornered by both sisters: the one she purely hated and the one she professed to love but now hated for betraying her.

  ‘You are taking her side again,’ she screeched, tears running down her cheeks. ‘You told me
you wanted me to help! Not her. You can’t trust her, you said so yourself.’

  Grace rolled her eyes and shot a look at Isobel to reassure her that this was not true, that this was poor Anna’s affliction talking. ‘Of course, you are the one I rely on the most. Nothing changes that, Anna, dear.’

  ‘Oh, everything changes that, Grace. You do not love me anymore!’ Anna sobbed, and ran from the room in a flood of tears, her hair falling down and her face blotchy and red.

  Grace looked shaken. Maybe her cocoon of bridal bliss had finally been punctured by the realisation of how her marriage appeared to her grieving sister. For how long could she delay the hard decision about Anna’s fate?

  One of the few bright points in this dismal sequence of events was how much Isobel was looking forward to Mr Probius’s visit to Faulconstone. New Year’s day had provided clear proof of his interest in her and he had also won the dowager’s favour that day so that Aunt Louisa equally looked forward to the gentleman paying her a visit. Ten days after the accidental meeting outside the Victoria Barracks, Mr Probius dropped his card onto the butler’s tray at Faulconstone and it was conveyed to the morning room.

  ‘Please ask Mr Probius to join us in the drawing room for tea, Emmet,’ ordered Aunt Louisa. The two women hastened to their respective bedrooms to adjust their hair and clothes, don a more colourful shawl and a suitable ring or bracelet. Once installed in the drawing room with their tea and scones, the party enjoyed a lively conversation. Mr Probius was in excellent spirits and had come bearing a gift.

  ‘I hope you do not find this presumptuous, Mrs Blunt, but as I have been walking about this district a fair deal of late I took the opportunity to do a small sketch of Faulconstone. A mere trifle, I’m afraid, but I hope it may amuse you.’

  The artist unwrapped a rectangle of board with a handsome sketch of Faulconstone behind its flowering frangipani tree. Mr Probius had presumably made some quick notational sketches from the front garden during his previous visit back in December and worked it up into a more detailed work during his local perambulations.