Yours sincerely etc. & etc.,
S.D.
The room spun and Isobel had to grip the arm of her chair to anchor herself. There was no mistaking the identity of the writer. It could be none other than Mr Simon Davidson. But that was not the only thing to cause Isobel’s heart to race and her head grow light.
The date! She looked again in dismay. Could it be possible? The letter was dated 13 September 1851: two weeks before the fateful duel between Mr Davidson and her father. Isobel’s mind reeled then with all the implications of the timing and import of this letter, which was a barely concealed threat to expose her father to public ruin if he did not reveal the truth about his expeditions. Was this the real reason her father had taken up arms against Mr Davidson? It seemed obvious that if the Major had succeeded in killing Mr Davidson under cover of a gentleman’s duel then there was a distinct possibility this scandalous secret would have been buried with him.
Was that her father’s plan after all? And had she, Isobel, accidentally defeated this plan by interrupting the fatal proceedings? Isobel was horrified by the possibility that her father had been willing to compound his original sin of concealing a murder by killing the man who threatened to unmask him. She felt as if she did not know her father at all. And then she remembered the look of cruel triumph on his face the night he dealt a crushing blow to his nemesis, Mr Macleay. Her love and admiration for her father was sustained only by deliberately ignoring this side of his nature.
Her mind was now crowded with more questions, of course. Why had Mr Davidson not pursued the matter further once the duel was over? And, stranger still, why had her father not destroyed this letter? Was it possible that he had left it here by design for her to find? Was his atonement after death to be Isobel’s responsibility then?
Isobel hastily returned the journal to its shelf as if it was a loaded shotgun that might discharge at any moment. No more of her family’s shameful past, no more! She would not read another word. Why, Father, have you done this? she railed to herself. What had this atrocious murder on a riverbank long ago and this quarrel between two men to do with her?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Isobel refused to have her happiness destroyed by secrets.
Chapter 35
SECRETS
MAY 1853
As it happened, the idyll of Isobel’s married life with Charles, despite all her efforts to keep it safe, would run its course for only two months. Two months of unforgettable bliss.
In the first week of May, Isobel had her nightmare again. She was disappointed, of course, because up to that point she had experienced no nightmares in her new home. She had begun to hope that the powers of the opal dragonfly no longer held sway here and that the separation from her family and Rosemount was the key to her peace of mind.
But she was wrong.
The dream of the drowned Rosemount rooftop resumed where she had last left it with the silver waters closing over the dome. On the corner of the surrounding courtyard wall stood her playmate, Ballandella, as she had done before. ‘Minhi!’ she shouted, hailing her little sister, and held up in her hand something that shone in the pale moonlight. ‘Come, Izzie. Wash away your sin!’ What was she saying: calling her to a baptism?
Ballandella danced along the wall, yelling and shaking her hands in the air. ‘Come on, Izzie! Come, come!’ A cloud passed before the face of the moon and for a second or two the dark waters appeared as red and sluggish as blood. ‘Time to go!’ shouted the little black girl and jumped into the claret-coloured sea.
In the distance, the hunched figure of Charles still worked the oars in the frozen rowboat. Isobel called to him. ‘Charles! Over here!’ And then she saw the tiny rowboat close by, the one she had seen before, no bigger than a basket. It bumped up against the dome and she leaned down to look inside. There lay a baby, tightly swaddled and red-faced from crying.
Isobel awoke in a sweat and ran from the bedroom. She rushed down the stairs, illuminated by moonlight through the window on the landing, and into the bathroom where she vomited. dear God, she prayed, this cannot be true. She did not need a doctor to tell her. She was pregnant. Of course she was.
And she also knew the precise moment of this baby’s conception. While she and Charles had practised withdrawal since, in that first act of abandon, they had thrown all caution to the proverbial winds as the drama of the dust storm all around them had created an atmosphere of dreamlike unreality. How could she have been so stupid? And her wilful stupidity had continued. Over the last four weeks or so, she had felt flutterings like hunger pains and waves of nausea and had chosen to pay them no attention. Even Charles had commented on the growing pouch of fat around her waist, which she could not explain, as she ate sparingly. A baby had been unfolding in her womb for the last six months and was now beginning to quicken. Isobel realised that she should have begun showing weeks ago; while her belly had tightened and thickened considerably in that time, it had not distended into the tell-tale profile of a pregnancy.
They had both behaved like fools! Isobel tried to calm her breathing but her head swam with all the catastrophic consequences that flowed from this. Charles and she had discussed children, of course, but as a possibility in the remote future. Neither of them was in any great haste to become a parent, though they understood this was expected of them as a married couple. How would Charles respond then to the news that he was to be a father?
But that was the least of her worries. The most pressing concern was how this would stir up another whirlwind of public outrage. There was no hiding the timing of this disaster—a baby conceived out of wedlock—or avoiding the consensus that Isobel was morally dissipated, a fallen woman.
She kneeled on the floor and leaned her head against the marble washstand.
Mercifully, Charles was still asleep. She could not summon the courage to tell him. Perhaps she would never tell him. Perhaps she would find a doctor to help rid her of the unborn child. She had heard Augustus talk some months ago about how British law had abolished the death penalty for ‘post-quickening’ abortions. Even so, the offence of procuring a miscarriage was still punishable by transportation for the term of one’s natural life, or a long prison sentence. ‘Too good for them!’ Augustus had scoffed in his usual superior tone.
That she could even momentarily contemplate the destruction of her baby, a prospect repugnant to all her principles, showed the depths of Isobel’s despair. Had she not had enough ignominy heaped on her head? This would only confirm the public view that she was, to use Grace’s word, ‘perverse’. Oh, how easily she imagined everyone—her sisters, Aunt Louisa and the well-bred women of the fancywork circle—turning their faces against her. ‘She was always trouble, that girl,’ they would say, rewriting history. ‘Once fallen, forever socially dead’—that ironclad rule had returned to haunt her. Except that Isobel was twice fallen. What hope was there for her restoration? None.
Her present happiness was so new, so fragile, she was prepared to do anything to preserve it. At least for now. She would secretly seek Dr Finch’s advice on her pregnancy. Perhaps she would write to Alice to unburden herself. She might even seek counsel from dear Mrs Palmer, her neighbour who lived only a few streets away. Seemingly overnight, Mrs Palmer had become so very old and frail, stricken with multifarious pains and afflictions. But she was the only person Isobel could imagine being able to offer compassion without judgement.
But now, right now, her baby would remain her secret.
Isobel knew that secrets had a way of eating at the foundations of love, friendship and trust. As she felt the stirrings behind her belly and said nothing to Charles, so too her mind stirred with dark thoughts that she kept hidden from everyone.
Under the pretext of an afternoon tea with Aunt Louisa, Isobel went to an appointment at Dr Finch’s rooms in Macquarie Street. She trusted that Dr Finch’s professional discretion (as well as his affection for her late father) would protect her from shame. Upon applying the cup of his stethoscope to her bell
y, he announced in his habitual sober manner: ‘Two heartbeats. Yours and your baby’s.’ Was there news more exquisitely mingled of pain and joy? Isobel thanked him, fighting back tears. Dr Finch insisted that she make another appointment soon as she was now in her third trimester and should be watched. Neither of them spoke of the glaring fact of this baby’s conception out of wedlock though Isobel detected a suitably tragic note in Dr Finch’s voice.
‘There is a delicate matter that is difficult for me to raise,’ stammered Isobel, a blush rising to her cheeks, ‘My…circumstances have somewhat altered since my father’s death. I may have to consider securing the services of a midwife.’
Dr Finch’s face darkened. He held up his hand to ward off the very notion. ‘If it is a matter of finances, Miss Macleod, then think no more about it.’ He looked down at her with a smile of beneficence. ‘Midwives may be all very well for, shall we say, a particular class of women. But I will not stand by and allow the daughter of an honourable friend to be exposed to the perils of poor hygiene. I am sure we can come to some satisfactory arrangement.’
She acknowledged his kindness and began to take her leave. Clearing his throat with theatrical extravagance, Dr Finch called her back. ‘On another delicate matter, please excuse my asking, but have you told the father’—he quickly corrected himself to avoid any unseemly implication—‘your husband about this yet?’
Isobel’s blush deepened. ‘No, not yet. I was waiting for your confirmation.’
There was more throat clearing. ‘Of course. I only ask as I am aware that some women in your situation, if you do not mind me saying so, decide to conceal the fact for as long as possible. I hope you will not find my advice obtrusive but from my experience of these matters, I have found this is not the wisest course.’
‘I understand, doctor,’ nodded Isobel. ‘I am grateful for your advice.’
But as she stepped out into the sunshine and the bustling multitude on Macquarie Street, her mind reeled at the thought of having to confront Charles.
And the world.
If God was indeed watching at His celestial peephole, He must have viewed the immediate sequence of events that followed Isobel’s visit to Dr Finch with grim irony. Isobel hurried to her next appointment at the Misses Smiths’ café on Pitt Street for afternoon tea with her aunt. There she was greeted with the startling news that her sister Grace had been delivered of a healthy baby daughter two days ago (and over a week past her due date). Olympia. It seemed that Augustus’s choice of name had won the day after all.
‘Olympia! It sounds so regal!’ cooed Aunt Louisa. ‘Ah, your dear father would have been so proud.’ She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and smiled bravely.
The cruel coincidence (and stark contrast) of this joyous public announcement with Isobel’s own secret shame was almost too much to bear. She did not begrudge Grace her maternal happiness but she did resent the imbalance in their fortunes. The birth of Grace’s child would be welcomed with general celebration while the news of Isobel’s would only invite gossip and censure. She could not imagine any possible reason why Charles would refuse to acknowledge the child as his own but still she felt haunted by fear.
‘do you think that such a happy occasion might be…’ Aunt Louisa chose her words carefully, ‘…grounds for a reconciliation between yourself and Grace?’
‘That lies within Grace’s power, not mine, Aunt,’ said Isobel tartly. ‘As I have had no word from her these last few months, I have severe doubts about the chances.’
‘Have you written to her, Isobel?’
While she understood her aunt’s grief at the schism in the family, Isobel was not pleased by her nagging tone. ‘And what should I say, Aunt? I am so sorry to hear that Anna’s mind is still beyond all remedy—for which I know you blame and hate me—and that you did not find it in your heart to write to me about your daughter’s birth. Presumably I am still banished from Rosemount. I hope you are both well, your loving sister, Isobel.’
Aunt Louisa looked hurt at this rebuke. But Isobel was beyond taking care of everyone else’s finer feelings when they seemed so uninterested in taking care of hers. An awkward silence ensued before the conversation resumed on less personal topics.
The afternoon tea ended awkwardly and abruptly. Isobel was feeling nauseated and increasingly agitated by her aunt’s sulkiness. ‘Please excuse me but I have to pick up a package at the post office before I return home.’ It was a white lie; some books for Charles had arrived from Melbourne but there was no urgency to collect them.
Isobel hurried away, flustered and sick at heart. Walking briskly along busy Bridge Street heading towards the post office on George, she passed the sandstone obelisk in Macquarie Place. This elegant monument had been erected by the Governor back in 1816 as the anchor point at the geographical heart of Sydney ‘to record that all the public roads leading to the interior of the colony are measured from it’. She paused for a moment of reflection and her mind filled with the image of her father, the master road maker. The memorial made no mention of the terrible price that had been paid for conquering ‘the interior of the colony’; its lovely, smooth sandstone and formal lettering obscured the shameful spilling of blood behind that brave enterprise.
Isobel picked up the mail and took the next omnibus up William Street. As she sat nursing the package in her lap, listening to the team of horses blowing and straining as they trudged the steep hill to the ridge, she looked back at Sydney’s sandstone buildings with their Gothic spires and belltowers stark against a cloudless sky.
On a day like this, it was easy to imagine a noble future for this city. Only last year a ceremony had been held to found a university, surely the mark of a civilised metropolis. And yet, with the revelations from her father’s journals, Isobel’s thoughts about her hometown became more embittered. This was a city built on lies and secrets, a city that refused to face its demons.
Having cut short her afternoon tea with her aunt and hastened to the post office, Isobel arrived in her street two hours earlier than she was expected. She wondered whether Charles was still out with his client or had returned early too. It was such a beautiful afternoon she was tempted to take a walk around the bay alone. She needed some time to herself to sort through all her troubled thoughts. Yes, that is what she would do—drop the package off at her house, change her clothes and take in the peaceful prospects of the bay.
She unlocked the front door and left her package on the table in the parlour. As she ascended the stairs she thought she heard someone in the rooms above. It was the servants’ day off so there should have been no one home.
‘Charles? Charles is that you?’ she called, her heart racing a little.
She opened the bedroom door and the sight that greeted her eyes was beyond her imagining. Her life would never be the same again. The idyll of her marriage was ended.
Standing before her, frozen in horror, was her husband, his shirt half-unbuttoned. And lying naked on the bed was Richard, the bearded and mysterious gent she had first met at Charles’s studio back in February.
Isobel reeled against the wall on the landing.
‘I’m pregnant, Charles!’ she screamed. ‘I’m pregnant with your child!’
Chapter 36
FORGIVENESS
JUNE TO JULY 1853
Later that night, Isobel sat alone in the parlour with only the light of one lamp to keep her company. She would probably fall asleep here in her chair as she could not bring herself to return to the marriage bed that had been polluted by she knew not what abominations.
Charles’s lover (if that was the right word) had dressed and fled the house. The scene of recriminations that then ensued lasted what seemed an eternity. Charles sat with his head buried in his hands or stared at the wall, his face chalk-white, running his fingers madly through his hair. His mood veered from tearful expressions of remorse and vows of expiation to outbursts of reproachful anger at being deceived into a penniless marriage with the additional burd
en of an unwanted child.
Then his mood would change tack just as quickly again and he would weep and beg Isobel for absolution. ‘Oh, my darling, please forgive me, I beg you. I still love you with all my heart and soul. Nothing changes my love for you.’
Isobel could only feel dismay at such a deep betrayal. Had she been wilfully blind? Aunt Louisa had been so reassured by Mr Probius’s dandyism (and, in her mind, lack of interest in women) that she had been happy to leave Isobel alone with him. But there was no doubt about Charles’s sexual passion. Surely that was not something a man could dissemble!
Charles knelt at Isobel’s side and clutched her hand, wetting it with his tears. ‘It is a perversion of my nature to have feelings of attraction for women and men, I cannot deny it. But you are my wife and my muse and my life’s companion! It is you I love.’
‘But him! How could you, Charles?’ accused Isobel. ‘Your best man at our wedding? Was it him you thought of when you said, “I do”?’ Her face was dark with fury. She could have spat on Charles, so great was her disgust. But to do so would have destroyed her own feelings for him completely, and she found that despite everything she still did not want that if it could be helped. But how could she ever forgive him?
The Opal Dragonfly Page 40