Grace nodded grimly. ‘The whole report is a tissue of lies and exaggerations, there is no doubt about that. It is easy to see the hand of Mr Macleay in all of this. His final act of revenge.’
‘And now he is beyond any accountability!’ mocked Aunt Louisa with a look of angry disdain that echoed the collective indignation.
‘So what happens now?’ asked Isobel.
‘The Major will be asked to respond,’ said Augustus. ‘While his position is being reviewed by the Governor he will be put on half pay and, if the Colonial Office is not satisfied with his defence of his record, he will be dismissed. He could tender his resignation now but he may lose his pension entitlements.’
Isobel’s mind was cast back to the picnic lunch with her mother just before her thirteenth birthday when she had first learned of her father’s troubles. Ever since, she had wondered if the price of admission to adulthood was the death of optimism. If someone as hardworking and dedicated as her father was hounded from office, it made a mockery of all hard work and dedication.
‘As I told you in my invitation, we have just received another letter from Father two days ago,’ said Grace. ‘He has decided to stay in London for the duke of Wellington’s funeral, which will be held later this week. He will then return on the Chusan and, all being well, be home by the end of January as the Governor has asked. But the other important news contained in his letter is that Father has finally found Alice.’
The table erupted with cries of surprise and joy. ‘Oh my, how is she? Is she well? What did he say?’
Grace signalled for them to calm down. ‘Thanks to the information they had received from the old caretaker at Gothamberly, Uncle Fergus and Father had a very helpful visit with the young Baron’s great-aunt in Cambridge. With further communication from the Twyckenhams’ lawyers, they tracked down Alice and Xavier in a small house in outer London. Father reports that she looks well, if a little thin and careworn, but is bearing up remarkably under the circumstances.’
‘She was always brave,’ said Anna, tears glistening at the corner of her eyes.
‘Father says his grandson is a bonny little chap with a strong resemblance to William when he was a baby.’ Grace choked back tears at the mention of her brother. ‘The long and the short of the matter is that Father has agreed to pay off some of the young Baron’s debts. He had fallen seriously ill in prison and his release came just in time to save his life. Father has also decided to invest adequate funds in an account to support Alice and her son for the future.’
There was a gasp from every throat. This was not the news anyone had expected.
‘But…are Alice and Xavier not coming back with him?’ Isobel asked.
‘No, they are not.’
Isobel did not understand. This was astonishing. Grace acknowledged her younger sister’s disbelief with a nod of her head. ‘Alice told Father that, despite everything, she still loved her husband and would not abandon him.’
‘But that is—’ Anna began to protest.
‘There are no “buts” in this case, my dear Anna. As you can imagine, Father made all the sensible arguments but finally he was faced with the stark choice of either helping Alice or not helping her. You know how stubborn Alice can be. Just like Father. I do not think this was an easy decision but it seems Papa has chosen to help her.’
‘But where will the money come from?’ asked Isobel. ‘Especially if he is put on half pay and may even lose his job.’ Even as she spoke these words, she suspected she already knew the answer.
There was an awkward pause. Grace and Augustus exchanged significant looks. Augustus spoke. ‘Before the Major left I made it clear to him that, if he thought it was necessary, I would be prepared to buy Rosemount. The Major has written to say that, under the circumstances, he has agreed to its sale.’
Anna and Isobel were dumbstruck. Of all the revelations that evening, this was the most shocking and profound (but one that, it appeared, Aunt Louisa had already heard). The two sisters could hardly object to Rosemount staying within the family, but this news confirmed their permanent exile. Rosemount was no longer their home. It would be Augustus and Grace’s home. It marked Grace’s ascension from middle sister (overlooked and taken for granted) to mistress of Rosemount.
Grace explained that they would cancel their lease at Hunters Hill and hoped to move into Rosemount by the end of the year. Father would live with them until he made further plans. She hastened to add that her sisters would always be welcome. For now, they would both remain at Faulconstone as companions to Aunt Louisa.
Isobel did not feel reassured. Anna looked even less sanguine. But both sisters did their best to conceal their deep dismay and to congratulate Grace and Augustus on their good fortune. It was evident that Augustus regarded his purchase of Rosemount as a gift to the family, an act of self-sacrifice and salvation, and expected heartfelt gratitude. Isobel imagined that William Macleay had felt the same when he took over Rosemount from his own indebted father.
An alarm sounded in Isobel’s head as she tried to take in the full import of this momentous announcement. She could not find the words to express her precise fears but Isobel had a strong intuition that, even with Father’s welcome return in January, this new arrangement would not be the guarantor of a happy future as they no doubt hoped. In fact, it may well be the cause of more grief.
With the exception of everything in the Major’s study, Rosemount’s furniture and possessions were sold off at a private auction (by invitation only) in early December. Isobel and Anna were invited to come to the house two days beforehand to choose any pieces they particularly cherished.
On what would prove to be her last visit to Rosemount before it was to be occupied by Grace and Augustus, Isobel arrived with Anna one grey overcast morning. The house had been closed up ever since the Major’s departure. Every room was musty with the smell of damp, and dead moths and mouse droppings; and their contents (even the chandeliers and mirrors) had been transformed into an alien geometry of circles, triangles and oblongs beneath white dustsheets.
As she stood in the echoing saloon under the dome, Isobel could not help thinking of the silence that had reigned here the morning after her mother’s death. In Winnie’s monumental absence, the chairs and tables, the cushions and vases, the needlework baskets and antimacassars, everything familiar had appeared absurd and obscene. These things had only been receptacles for meaning when Winnie was alive, when her hand had touched them, when her eye had ordered and admired them. In the same way, the house now felt like the empty stage of a theatre, waiting for the props to be cleared away for the next play.
Grace and Augustus hoped to christen the house as their new home with a family dinner on Christmas Eve. How strange, thought Isobel, that only a year ago they had toasted Grace’s engagement at such a dinner. How much had changed. Her own love for Charles had barely ripened and the fate of Alice was unknown, as was that of her brothers. She recalled the spirit of her father’s toast that evening, if not the exact words, blessing Grace and Augustus’s union and anticipating the scene at this year’s table with one united and blessed family. The chasm between this vision and the present reality was hard to ignore. Isobel’s father would still be abroad and the memory of William’s death would rob the occasion of any cheer.
And there would be no Charles.
His letter a week ago had craved Isobel’s indulgence as he was now planning to spend most of the summer in Victoria, probably to the end of January. He sent his most profuse apologies and protestations that he would make recompense for this long absence ‘at such a challenging time for you, my dearest’.
Charles and his companion, Samuel Gill, had spent three very productive weeks in the Victorian goldfields where ‘such diverse and rich scenes of humanity in all its guises and moods’ proved irresistible to the artist’s eye. ‘It is hard to do justice in words alone to the spirit of brotherly love that prevails here despite the hardships. I truly believe that out of this busy, makeshif
t conurbation, this self-ruled fraternity of stout-hearted men and women, will be born a new society where the citizenry will claim a fair share of the common wealth produced from their own sweat, toil and dreams.’
Charles’s letter explained that he and Samuel had just set out on a field trip into the Flinders Ranges. Thanks to Samuel’s growing reputation as an artist, they had been invited to join a surveying party dispatched by Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe to mark out new pastoral leases. Six years ago, Samuel had been the draughtsman on an expedition into this country led by the ill-fated Mr John Horrocks, who had died from his wounds when his gun accidentally discharged while he was seated on a grumpy camel. The rugged countryside was still a wilderness, not yet overrun with sheep and cattle. The two artists now camped under the stars and in the lilac light of early morning painted huge mobs of kangaroos grazing in the wild. Charles greedily drank in all this beauty and worked hard. ‘You will forgive me when you see my sketches—this country is a paradise!’
Isobel imagined that Charles and her father would have much to talk about when they met. But there was, she could not forget, a huge obstacle to surmount: the looming prospect of Isobel’s lie being exposed. Back in March she had told Charles that her father was in favour of the match, with no objection to their courtship in principle. She had gone on to elaborate her lie with a truth: ‘He would still like to meet you in person and discuss your proposal for my hand in marriage.’ Charles had certainly not forgotten this date with his destiny. ‘I await your father’s return impatiently when I shall claim you as my darling wife. Soon, soon, my sweet!’
What could Isobel do now? If she said nothing to Charles then the fact of their secret courtship since Father’s departure would be laid bare at his meeting with the Major, as would her deception. The consequences were too terrible to contemplate. Charles would feel duped and betrayed and her father would be furious and never approve of the match. Her lie would bring about the very thing it was designed to prevent.
Isobel had no choice. She had to tell Charles the truth. She knew he valued honesty so highly he had taken it as his name. But she also recalled the mischievous spark in his eyes and his tone of voice when she suggested they keep Aunt Louisa in the dark about their love trysts: ‘Dear, oh dear, you are asking me to dissemble?…You are more wicked than I thought, Isobel Macleod.’ She hoped that Charles would be sympathetic to her determination to lie for love. He of all people would understand the necessity, especially for the weak and disenfranchised, to break society’s rules at times. What power did she as a woman possess, as the property and possession of men, fathers and husbands alike, except to dissemble?
Isobel had a firm faith that Charles’s passion and his patient, kind and dedicated love for her—already proven beyond any doubt these last months—would overcome his scruples. Isobel also earnestly hoped that the last ten months had afforded her father enough time to inquire into Charles Probius’s reputation in order to make up his own mind. Charles and the Major were both, in their own spheres, men enraptured by this country’s beauty and promise. Surely theirs would be a meeting of compatible souls and minds? despite all these reassurances to herself, Isobel still anticipated the return of her father and her lover with a disconcerting mix of joyful anticipation and fearfulness. She knew she was fast approaching a crossroads that would determine her future path to happiness or despair. Every night she half-prayed that the opal dragonfly’s dreams would give her a sign to illuminate the road ahead. But she waited in vain for the reappearance of the man in the rowboat, rowing neither away nor towards her, to tell her of her fate.
Christmas proved a dreary, even trying affair, despite Grace and Augustus’s generous hospitality. Both Anna and Isobel were ill at ease at the ornate French winged table in Rosemount’s dining room as they sat either side of Aunt Louisa and opposite dear Mrs Palmer. ‘A toast to our family and its imminent reunion!’ proposed Augustus, still basking in his own good estimation that he was the heroic saviour of Rosemount.
In making the house their own, Grace and Augustus had crammed the spacious rooms, once the domain of sober tables, chairs and chiffoniers in mahogany and cedar, with their new furniture: lavishly carved and plumply upholstered French chairs and chaise longues, dark-wood and gilded gueridons and desks in ebony, walnut and tulipwood. Everywhere one looked were Indians from North America, blackamoors from Africa, and bare-breasted, winged women from Egypt, seated, bowed, upright, in postures of submission and support. Aunt Louisa’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
Isobel smiled to imagine what Charles would make of it all. Whatever political reservations Augustus might have about Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire, these did not seem to interfere with his and Grace’s taste. Isobel also wondered how the Major would tolerate living among such trappings of French decadence. She suspected that the decor would drive her father to seek alternative accommodation sooner rather than later.
Apart from its questionable taste, the presence of all this unfamiliar stuff in such an intimately familiar setting was deeply unsettling for Anna and Isobel. Their childhood home was almost unrecognisable. They did their best to appear supportive of their sister’s new ownership of Rosemount and yet, despite their smiles and nods, Grace could feel her sisters’ discomfiture and in their faces saw the silent accusation of her and Augustus’s usurpation.
Isobel was thankful that her busy days with the fancywork circle in preparation for the New Year’s day bazaar took up so much of her time and attention. despite her zealous devotion to the cause, Isobel apologised to Aunt Louisa that she did not feel well enough to attend this year. While it was true she had been unnaturally fatigued these last few weeks, the real reason was her fretting about the future. The last place she could bear to revisit was where she had heard the dire predictions of the soothsayer: ‘You will find what you are looking for. But everyone you love will be gone.’
She received two more letters from Charles during January. He planned to be back in Sydney on the last day of the month. ‘Do you know yet when your father returns? I wish to make an appointment to see him the minute I am back. When I have his formal consent, we can post our banns at St Mark’s and share with the world the news of our blissful love. I am sure that your sisters and your aunt will be more than reconciled to these glad tidings.’
Isobel had written to Charles about her longing for his return and how she could only keep herself distracted from thinking about him with her needlework and her drawing. ‘I too have been drawing,’ she wrote, ‘mostly botanical studies as I wish to sharpen my skills of observation there. I am coming to understand more deeply every day how Art and Science are twin sisters in our humble endeavours to comprehend God’s creation, to see the hidden patterns of His handiwork that will reveal nature’s mysteries for our enjoyment and our use.’
There was one detail that she omitted in her news to Charles: Grace and Augustus’s purchase of Rosemount. Why did she hesitate to mention such a momentous change? She did not dwell on the reason. She simply decided that it was a topic best left for his return.
The day finally came for the Major’s arrival in the last week of January. The family gathered at the quay with feelings of relief and gladness in their hearts as the Chusan steamed into the harbour. A majestic plume of smoke signalled her arrival on the horizon greeted by a chorus of ‘hurrah’s, repeated several times as she made her stately progress through the Heads. The ship’s appearance was still a welcome novelty and cause for jubilation, and a raucous throng lined the cliffs and jetties of Port Jackson to cheer her in. The mail she carried was more precious than any other cargo in her holds (including thousands of pounds sterling) and her decks bristled with naval cannons and swivel guns as protection against the pirate junks of the China and Java Seas.
Isobel’s heart leaped at the sight of this ship, which bore home her beloved and dearly missed father. despite the strange portents of her dreams and her nervousness about the future, Isobel was determined to be optimistic and to hope t
hat, with her father’s auspicious and safe return, harmony and good sense would prevail.
Chapter 30
THE RETURN
JANUARY TO FEBRUARY 1853
Isobel fought back tears as she embraced Papa.
‘Ah, Isobel, it is so good to see you.’
She thought he looked much older than the past ten months could account for. While there was still that purposefulness and vigour in his bearing that was so familiar to Isobel, she also sensed a deep fatigue. It was there in his whole manner, slower and more hesitant than usual, and in his speech, less voluble and assertive. It was there in the slight stoop of his shoulders, the thinning of his hair and whiskers, the slack skin of his neck, the pallor of his face and the soft pouches of flesh beneath each eye. But perhaps it was simply that his prolonged absence made clear to Isobel just how much her indestructible father had aged these last years without her really noticing.
Back at Rosemount, Isobel noted a tremor of alarm pass almost imperceptibly across her father’s face as he entered his home, now so very changed. And, of course, there were other, more profound shocks to come. The family anticipated that Grace’s letter had not reached him in time so the subject of William’s death had yet to be broached; to soften the blow the Macleod family had dispensed with their mourning clothes for one day. Grace had agreed to tactfully take Father aside and break the terrible news to him later that night. A copy of the commission’s report waited in the study but none of the family was in a hurry to mention it. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
While his luggage was unloaded and unpacked, the Major settled into a chair in the drawing room and called for a rummer of punch and a plate of cold collations. He had suffered terrible stomach pains (a bout of seasickness?) and a persistent cough in the last week and had not eaten properly for all that time. He was brimming with news and seemed greatly cheered by having his family gathered around as an eager audience.
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