The Opal Dragonfly

by Julian Leatherdale

  On the way there, as their carriage rattled past the swamps around Rose Bay, Charles suddenly pulled up by the side of New South Head Road. A black man, huddled in blankets, sat a few feet from the roadside, his right arm extended towards them, hand cupped upwards.

  ‘What’s the toll today, Billy?’ asked Charles cheerfully, stepping down from the carriage. It was Billy Warrell, known around Sydney as ‘Ricketty dick’ and the Chief of Rose Bay. Charles had done a sympathetic portrait sketch of him years ago. Billy looked up, squinting, his eyes rheumy and bloodshot. A big smile spread across his face.

  ‘Mr Charles, eh? Only thruppence for you and the ladies.’ His voice croaked. Charles pressed a shilling into the man’s palm. The man’s smile grew bigger.

  ‘You been looking after yourself, Billy? And how’s Mrs Snowball?’ ‘She be good, Mr Charles. Out fishing today. You going somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, Billy, we’re off to South Head. To do some drawing.’

  ‘Bring me back some nice fish, eh? Some nice mussels. For my tea?’ Billy laughed a deep, rumbling laugh, slapping his thigh for good measure. ‘Got any baccy, Mr Charles?’

  ‘Sorry, Billy. Not today. Take care of yourself, old man. And your wife.’

  ‘Will do, my friend. You too.’

  Charles said little for the rest of the drive out to South Head except to gee up the horses or note the loveliness of the vista as they came over the ridge. Isobel could tell he was lost in melancholy reflection and she could only guess at his thoughts. But she suspected they had something to with the pitiful sight of Billy Warrell, his back hunched against the freezing winds and his hand outstretched for a few wretched coins.

  Soon after the Major’s departure, Grace and Augustus set up house in their elegant villa in the small village of Hunters Hill, with views from its upper-storey windows over the Lane Cove River. Augustus had leased this handsome French-style house from Monsieur Didier Joubert, a champagne merchant, and his brother Jules, who had bought up land on the waterfront of this narrow peninsula, flanked by the Lane Cove River on one side and the Parramatta River on the other. The Didier brothers had imported seventy masons from Tuscany to build large houses from the lovely local sandstone to lease and to sell.

  The ‘French village’ (as it was called) that sprang up there became a precinct for emigrants, political exiles and fortune hunters from France, Switzerland and Italy. While Grace was glad to be mistress of her own fine house, she had not yet become accustomed to the extreme quiet and isolation of Hunters Hill. This idyllic retreat suited the temperament of Augustus, whose presence was only required in town once or twice a week. But for Grace, the peninsula felt a long away from the city proper, even further than Rosemount.

  There had been much to do to prepare their new home for public inspection, but by July the married couple felt that they were ready to host a house-warming party at Villa Dordogne. An invitation arrived at Faulconstone for Isobel, Anna and Aunt Louisa. While Isobel was curious to see the new house, her dreams were still haunted by sad visions of Rosemount all shut up, its furnishings shrouded in white and its empty rooms home only to moths and mice.

  At Isobel’s next lesson with Charles he had some interesting news. ‘You will never guess,’ he said when she entered the room. ‘It appears I will be joining you at your sister’s party next week.’ Isobel visibly startled at this announcement and her face went white. ‘My dear, what is the matter?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine,’ said Isobel. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  But the truth was that the strain of keeping her relationship with Charles a secret was taking a toll on Isobel’s nerves. Anna had been all sweetness and courtesy when she first met Charles at Faulconstone but ever since she had examined them both with her habitual squint-eyed expression, full of misanthropic ill will. Isobel knew her sister too well. She was convinced that Anna suspected something and would do anything to make mischief and cause Isobel harm. For a split second, Isobel had irrationally assumed that Charles’s invitation to the party was proof that their relations had been uncovered—by Anna or Grace or God knows who; prying eyes were everywhere. As soon as her heart began to bolt in terror she realised this was an absurd conclusion and regained her composure.

  ‘So how…why?’ Isobel looked at Charles blankly.

  ‘Your sister has just furnished her new house with tables, chairs, vases, clocks and all manner of ornaments. So what does she now urgently require over her mantelpiece?’

  Isobel smiled. ‘A portrait painting!’

  ‘Yes, indeed. A double portrait, I am glad to say. Grace and Augustus and perhaps an adoring fox terrier or two at their feet in lieu of children. I have your guardian to thank for the recommendation.’

  ‘Make sure you charge them handsomely!’ insisted Isobel. ‘Augustus’s pockets bulge with fistfuls of guineas just the way his cheeks bulge with foie gras and truffles!’

  ‘I know. The more I charge, the more they will enjoy the art,’ winked Charles.

  How strange it felt to know that she and Charles would drink Grace’s champagne and eat Grace’s food right under her nose while she did not have the slightest inkling of their forbidden love. And how delicious to think that some of Augustus’s money that went into Charles’s pocket might end up spent on a token of affection for Isobel! The whole notion of this underhand performance tickled her fancy. It might be unworthy, but it felt like a small yet satisfying act of vengeance in exchange for Isobel having to endure Grace and Augustus’s marriage while she was still smarting from the cruel blow of Father’s rejection of Charles.

  On the appointed night, Anna, Isobel and Aunt Louisa set out in the brougham as early as half past five to be sure of arriving in time, picking up Charles from his terrace in Woolloomooloo on the way. Charles looked resplendent in a plush blue double-breasted frock coat, Jacquard-woven silk vest in black and gold stripes, and an ebony cane with a handle carved in the stooped figure of a raven. Isobel had dressed simply in a velvety moss green gown with a high collar, in part to conceal the opal dragonfly on its chain that hung about her neck. Her defiance had assumed a new pitch of daring and danger, at the same time as she felt protected by the sanctity of her dead mother’s love.

  The horses were tiring as the brougham at last turned into a driveway through a set of ornate iron gates and Isobel, Anna, Aunt Louisa and Charles clapped their eyes on the Villa Dordogne, a striking double-storeyed sandstone house with intricate ironwork verandas and green-tiled roof, surrounded by a lush garden and with views over the water.

  ‘It is so beautiful,’ gushed Isobel as her sister shepherded their party from room to room, drawing attention to the Italian marble fireplaces and the ornate furniture from Paris. Grace explained how their occupation of the house had been delayed because most of the furnishings were imported. Her moon-faced husband beamed with unapologetic pride.

  Isobel kept to herself her impression that the Major would hate everything about the place, not least the French name of this jewel of a house by the water. Perhaps that was even part of its appeal to her newly independent sister. Grace and Augustus had invited several local luminaries including the Joubert brothers, the jeweller Edmond de La Rue and the aristocrat Count Gabriel de Milhau, exiled from his homeland after the 1848 revolution.

  It had rained that afternoon and the bush still gave off the rich loamy smell of soaked earth mingled with the lemon tang of eucalypt blossom still heavy on the bough. In the failing light of dusk, the guests could just make out the tricolour of the Second Republic flying above the French consulate located only a few streets away.

  ‘The people of France will live to regret that they have elected another Napoleon to lead them!’ declared the Count in conversation with Charles, Isobel and other guests as they stood on the terrace with their glasses of wine and French fizz. ‘Before the year is out this President-for-life will have himself crowned Emperor, you mark my words.’

  For Isobel, meeting a real flesh-and-bl
ood French aristocrat was like meeting a mythical creature: enchanting and a little intimidating. The Count was a lean, handsome man in his sixties, with yellow vulpine eyes and long-fingered, elegant hands. Fortified by a glass or two of wine, he grew expansive about his life story. As a young man, he had been an émigré in Switzerland during the Revolution that swallowed up all his family’s estates and several relations. Come the Bourbon Restoration, he had returned home where, with a keen nose for business, he had joined the ranks of France’s new nobility: the bankers, financiers and industrialists. He had welcomed the ascension of the ‘bourgeois king’ Louis-Philippe, whose reign proved very good for the rich but not such a blessing for the workers and the poor. In June 1848 a volcano of working-class anger had exploded on the streets of Paris and thousands were killed and injured, the cobblestones sticky with their blood, and crows picking at corpses. The Count wrote articles attacking the return of Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, Louis-Napoleon, who was then elected president. declared a public enemy, the Count had fled to Australia.

  ‘Australia is blessed to be spared the bloodshed of revolution,’ the Count reassured his circle of listeners. ‘Until you have seen the ugliness and violence of the mob, you cannot understand what a boon it is to live under an enlightened monarch and the rule of law.’ Isobel noticed the angry twitch in Charles’s lips. His usual languid ease had deserted him and, in its place, she detected an uncharacteristic surliness. ‘Australia is indeed blessed, sir,’ said Charles with a sardonic smile, ‘at least for the rich squatters who have as much land as they can seize and as much free labour to work it as they need. Even more blessed are the wealthy directors of the Australian Agricultural Company who wined and dined most of the British Cabinet to grab their half a million hectares of grazing land.’

  The Frenchman’s wolfish eyes narrowed. ‘A fine speech, sir. You are quite the demagogue.’

  Isobel studied Charles’s face, dark with anger now, and barely recognised her usually placid, charming companion. Charles continued, ‘As for being spared bloodshed, sir, the persecuted Irishman, the murdered and reviled Aborigine and the leg-ironed and cat-o’-nine-tail-lashed convict may not see Australia as quite the peaceful paradise that you do.’

  The aristocrat sneered. ‘You are quite the pamphleteer, sir. Tell me, have you a soapbox at the Quay where we can hear more of your diatribes?’

  Charles ignored this cheap mockery. ‘If you feel that my opinions are so incendiary and offensive, sir, perhaps you should have not come to a colony where Britain has sent so many of its discontented. The Croppies and the Ribbonmen of Ireland, the Scottish Martyrs, the Patriotes of Canada, the Chartists of England—they are all here, sir. And one day, their voices will be heard. And more self-satisfied aristocrat heads will roll, you mark my words!’

  ‘Pfff!’ The Count gave a short, scoffing bark of a laugh and walked away. As the rest of the company drifted back inside, Charles seemed to recover his equanimity and stood a little closer to Isobel, apologising under his breath for his outburst.

  ‘I am so sorry, my dear, if I have embarrassed you! But that—that insufferable man!’

  ‘No, no, please do not apologise, Charles,’ whispered Isobel from behind her fan. ‘You were right to be angry. The man was a fool. To be honest, it frustrates me that we women are considered unfit to have strong opinions on such subjects. How can we be worthy companions to men if we are expected to remain ignorant of worldly affairs?’

  Charles turned his head to smile at her. ‘I believe that Mrs Wollstonecraft would heartily agree with you. My dearest Isobel, what a wonderful mystery you are!’ He looked at her with such tenderness that it took all their self-restraint not to touch each other as more guests began to gather on the terrace to admire the sunset.

  The unfortunate argument between the artist and the Count was soon forgotten in the general atmosphere of self-congratulation that prevailed at Grace and Augustus’s lavish party. Quadrilles were danced until well past midnight. Mr Joubert’s jeroboams were uncorked and drunk by the case accompanied by the unrestrained consumption of fricasseed fowl, fricandeau veal, pâté de pigeon, cheesecakes, tartlets, gooseberry fool and biscuits rose de Reims. Anna was flattered by being asked to perform on Villa Dordogne’s brand-new Italian harpsichord. Aunt Louisa watched the whole affair primly from the sidelines, where she noted how every year the ladies’ crinolines grew wider and more voluminous. Ostentatious excess was the spirit of the times, it seemed. All in all, the party was a triumph of cultured taste and unstinting hospitality that endeared the hosts to their neighbours, just as it was intended to.

  For Isobel, the evening left one lasting impression: her handsome Charles, outraged on behalf of the common man, a picture of impeccable and high-minded integrity. She added this to the list of the many reasons she loved him.

  Following the party at Villa Dordogne, there were no invitations to balls or parties or dances and life became rather quiet again at Faulconstone. Preoccupied as she was with Charles and her art lessons, the lack of formal social outings did not overly concern Isobel, though she did wonder if the ladies of the Benevolent Society fancywork circle would ever meet again for a gossipy afternoon tea or throw a gay supper party or dance at one of their grand houses.

  Thanks to Sir Charles Nicholson, speaker of the Legislative Council and an old friend of the Major’s, in late August the women of Faulconstone were sent tickets, in the Major’s absence, to a ‘Steam Ball’ at the Australian Museum to celebrate the arrival of the P&O’s Royal Mail steamship Chusan, which had made the trip from Southampton in a record time of only sixty-seven days.

  The cream of colonial society was in attendance including His Excellency the Governor-General, Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy; nearly all the members of the Legislative Council; Lieutenant-General Wynyard in command of the NSW troops; Colonel Bloomfield and most of the officers of the 11th regiment; and the consuls of all the maritime powers in friendly intercourse with Great Britain. Twenty chandeliers and dozens of sinumbra whale-oil lamps illuminated the main room, which was bedecked in national flags, and the grand assembly of more than seven hundred guests in all their finery stood and raised a toast to Captain Henry down and his officers of the Chusan.

  Huge crowds had gathered at the Quay to see the magnificent steamship with its smoke-belching stack and mighty engine that had hurled this miracle of modern engineering through wild storms and precipitous waves at unimaginable speed. At the ball, speeches were delivered, both patriotic and even poetic in tone, that praised the revolutionary ‘sorcery of steam’. This remarkable innovation saw the Australian colonies on the cusp of a bold, new chapter of prosperity (thanks to the gold rushes) and of statehood (thanks to a new constitution); it was particularly fitting then that they were in such rapid and close communication with the Mother Country for the purposes of trade and good governance. When these formalities were over, the guests danced to the specially commissioned Chusan waltz.

  As Aunt Louisa had excused herself from the ball, Anna and Isobel were chaperoned by Augustus and Grace. The married couple were the centre of admiring eyes, Augustus repeatedly congratulated on a recent brilliant legal success and Grace complimented on her latest gee-gaw, a gold Algerian-knot brooch with a bezel-faceted garnet. Isobel discreetly fingered the opal dragonfly, hidden beneath her own gown and pelerine, to calm her qualms of jealousy. She was jealous only of Grace’s freedom to openly display her husband’s love, of course, and certainly not of Augustus himself! Her Charles was ten times, nay, a hundred times the man that this dull, self-satisfied fellow aspired to be.

  It should have done Isobel’s heart good to be at a party again, released from the daily routine at her aunt’s, but the truth was she missed Charles. He had regretfully cancelled tomorrow’s art lesson as he was obliged to be out of town for a few days. While Isobel took pleasure in the spectacle of the dancing, the distinguished assembly, the gay dresses and uniforms, and the general bonhomie of the company, she felt bereft. After three d
ances with three equally charming men, including a naval lieutenant from HMS Pandora, she retired to a chaise longue at the back of the room, unable to persist in the charade of blushing debutante a minute longer.

  At the supper table she heard an oddly familiar voice call her name. ‘Miss Isobel Macleod?’ She turned and saw a short, dark-haired man in a splendid vest. It was none other than Mr Simon Davidson, her father’s implacable enemy and duelling partner. despite the scandal of the duel, Mr Davidson had thrived and was earning a reputation as an animated speaker in the Legislative Council and a powerful advocate for modernising the colony’s economy.

  ‘Mr Davidson, what an unexpected pleasure!’ said Isobel, trying not to blush.

  ‘I am glad to see you out in society, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Mr Davidson, offering to refill her glass at the punchbowl. ‘I hear your father has gone to England on urgent family matters. You know how gossip travels here.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘But I hope there are no untoward circumstances surrounding this sudden departure. Your family have suffered enough these last few months. Please, tell me, how are you faring?’

  Perhaps I am naïve, thought Isobel, but the gentleman seems genuinely solicitous. She recalled how chivalrous he had been on the day of the duel: ‘I believe what you did today was courageous.’ She was surprised to find that she felt perfectly happy to talk to him. ‘We are all awaiting the report from the inquiry into Father’s conduct of his department with great anxiety, as you can imagine,’ said Isobel.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Mr Davidson, looking a touch shamefaced. ‘I am sorry if I have been the cause of such troubles for your family. You may find this hard to believe but I did not mean to injure your father’s reputation, only to suggest improvements in the running of his department. It was never intended to be personal.’