by Téa Cooper
Before the coachman even had the opportunity to leave the box Finneas threw open the door and leapt out. In an attempt to still the cramp of fear almost paralysing her she grabbed her precious carpetbag before taking the hand he offered. Stepping carefully, loath to disrupt the stones carpeting the pristine carriageway that made the newly constructed Parramatta road look like a forgotten wallaby track, she approached the front door.
Ten
London, England 1820
Rose fascinated Finneas. All he wanted to do was ply her with questions but when the carriage rolled to a halt it became perfectly obvious that the poor girl was thoroughly nervous and overcome. The tremor in her fingers had transferred to his palm as he’d handed her down from the carriage, and a pinched look bracketed her full wide mouth.
Hardly surprising if reports of New South Wales were to be believed. Grosvenor Square would contain some of the most imposing building she’d ever set eyes on. A matter he intended to rectify. Nothing would delight him more than to help Rose discover all London had to offer and perhaps in return she could appease his insatiable curiosity in all things Antipodean.
Hughes threw the door open before he had the opportunity to prepare her for the grandeur of the Methenwyck townhouse. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Miss Rose.’ He bowed low and reversed to allow them to enter. ‘I shall serve afternoon tea in the blue sitting room if that is to your liking.’
Rose’s eyes widened and the pink of her cheeks faded.
‘Thank you, Hughes. And would you please see Miss Winton’s bags are taken to her room.’
‘Am I to stay here?’ Her fingers tightened around the disreputable carpetbag that she refused to let out of her grasp.
‘That is what Julian intended. I’m certain the room will be to your liking and there is a small sitting room set aside for your private use. Would you prefer to take tea there? Perhaps you are tired.’
‘I would like a moment to …’ Her words trailed away as her eyes widened even further as she stared up the stone staircase to the fresco. Something he’d never been terribly partial to: a classical figurative scene redolent of some unearthly paradise where nymphs frolicked beneath the kind of cloudless sky London rarely offered.
‘Not a lot has been done to the house since Lord Methenwyck lived here as a young man, before he married. He no longer visits London nor does Caroline, my mother. My suspicion is she enjoys being in town, however Lord Methenwyck can’t do without her. He suffers from a weak heart and some disability after an apoplexy.’
Swaying, she set her bag down on the stairs and reached for the balustrade. She needed sustenance, a cup of tea or maybe chocolate with a good dollop of sugar to bring back the colour to those lovely cheeks. ‘Hughes see that Miss Rose’s luggage is taken up to her room. And bring some tea and hot chocolate. She needs to rest.’
‘No, I’m not tired at all. Just a little overcome. This is not quite what I anticipated. We live much more simply.’
‘Would you prefer we arrange alternative accommodation for you?’
‘I’m concerned you have already gone to too much trouble. I don’t want to be a nuisance.’
How to explain that neither he nor Julian had lifted a hand, left it all to the servants? ‘Julian and I rattle around here like two old codgers. There are at least ten or twelve vacant bedchambers.’ And on that subject where was Julian? It was hardly past four; he couldn’t have gone to Brooks’s yet. Surely he would wait to greet his sister.
‘Ten or twelve. Oh, my goodness.’ She swayed again and he reached for her elbow.
‘Come and take some refreshment.’ The poor thing was quite beside herself. He couldn’t wait to hear about her life. He’d heard rumours that many were choosing to make a new start in the colony, buying land or better still being granted land and making a good living. Only last week he’d read about John Macarthur’s grandiose plans, not just sheep but now racehorses and grapes. ‘And then your luggage will be unpacked and you can rest.’
‘Unpacked? I can do that.’
‘The servants will see to it.’
‘Not my carpetbag. Where is it?’ Her voice became slightly higher pitch as though in panic.
‘Come and sit down.’ He led her into the sitting room. ‘I’ll make sure your bag is brought to you.’ Whatever the bag contained it was obviously more precious than the contents of her trunk.
Hughes had done what Hughes did best and two chairs were drawn up in front of a roaring log fire and a pleasant heat permeated the room.
‘Let me take your coat.’
‘Thank you.’ She shrugged off the appalling brown pelisse disclosing a pretty if somewhat outdated day dress covered in some tiny flower pattern, and settled in the chair, her feet neatly crossed at the ankles revealing a pair of substantial boots. Caroline would have a field day. He could see her calling her dressmaker and lavishing hours on the task of turning this little colonial miss into a fashion plate. Julian should be here by now.
A discreet knock on the door heralded Hughes with his trolley laid with enough cakes and sandwiches to feed a regiment and a steaming pot of hot chocolate. After Rose was settled he’d head down to the kitchen before he made his calls at the paupers hospital; a sweet treat or two cured myriad illnesses if applied at the correct time. ‘Hughes, could you make sure Miss Rose’s carpetbag is brought in here. It is not to be unpacked.’
One of the butler’s eyebrows as good as disappeared up his forehead and he opened his mouth, no doubt to point out that he had everything under control.
‘Now Hughes. And is Mr Julian home?’
‘No sir he hasn’t arrived yet. I believe he had pressing business at his club.’
Damn the man. Pressing business. At the gaming tables no doubt. He could quite easily have accompanied him to collect Rose.
A pulse visibly pounded in Rose’s temple and her eyes darted from side to side until Hughes reappeared with her tattered bag and the tension seeped from her shoulders.
‘Thank you. I’d like it just here.’ She indicated to the spot beside her equally tattered boots. ‘I’m sorry to cause such a fuss but it contains my father’s research and while I could live without the contents of my trunk the contents of this bag are irreplaceable.’
Fascinating. His fingers itched to open the bag; instead he poured her a cup of chocolate and placed it on the table next to her. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘Not at the moment, no thank you.’ She lifted the cup to her lips and grimaced slightly as she swallowed, then smiled.
‘It’s not to your liking.’
‘No, it’s lovely. What is it?’
‘Hot chocolate. Have you not …’
‘No. It’s delicious. We usually drink tea at home, or water.’ The tip of her pink tongue traced her lips before she took another sip with a quiet sigh of satisfaction.
‘You must tell me all about home and in return I shall delight in showing you London.’
‘When will Julian be home?’
‘I was expecting him to be here when we arrived.’ His nonappearance was something of an embarrassment. He was sick and tired of making excuses for the man’s appalling behaviour and bailing him out of the ridiculous situations he managed to become embroiled in. ‘While we’re waiting tell me something of Winton’s research.’
With a delightful blush she rose from her chair and squatted down next to the carpetbag. Her dress pulled tight across her shoulders showing a well-defined and somewhat muscled torso. Her life to date had without doubt been an active one.
Clutching a dilapidated leather sketchbook, the cover splattered with water stains, and a burlap sack she settled back into the chair. The reek of something vaguely dusty, with overtones of what he thought might be a mixture of alcohol and arsenical soap permeated the space between them.
She settled the sketchbook on the table between them and clutched the sack in her lap.
‘What have you got in there?’
‘A specimen. Originally name
d Platypus anatinus but the German anatomist Blumenbach independently named it Ornithorhynchus paradoxus in 1800. Sadly platypus had already been bestowed upon a poor unsuspecting beetle, so Blumenbach’s Ornithorhynchus was combined with the earlier species name, anatinus, to give the scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus.’
A specimen and uttered without a moment’s hesitation where he’d expect a fit of the vapours from any other female of his acquaintance. He sat upright and leant forward. And as before, the Latin rolled off her tongue as though she’d conversed in the language daily.
She slipped her hand inside the bag. ‘Duckbill is the less scientific name which we colonials prefer, from Ornithorhynchus, meaning bird-nosed, although I like mallangong. The word I used as a child. Others refer to it as a water mole but it is in no way related to the mole. Would you like to see? Some people find it a little unnerving.’
She was telling him, warning him, a physician, who spent more time in the basement of St Bartholomew’s Hospital dissecting cadavers than he was prepared to admit in polite society. Oh, this girl was a delight.
She cradled the cat-sized specimen on her lap. ‘Pa and I prepared it. They’re not very good eating, rank and fishy really. It’s the pelts that are the attraction; they make excellent blankets. Pa sent a pelt to Sir Joseph over twenty years ago. That’s when their correspondence began. Numerous people cast doubts on its authenticity, said so quite emphatically in several descriptions that were published. That fuelled Pa’s desire to prove otherwise. Sir Joseph requested direct observations. That’s what I have here.’
He could see why people doubted its authenticity. Its sleek body was covered in fur the colour of an otter. He ran his fingers over its back down to the broad flattened tail then returned to the head. Instead of terminating in a snout, as he would have expected, it had a beak. A beak like a duck, broad and compressed, round at the lip and covered with some kind of cartilaginous, leathery membrane. A total paradox. However would it be classified? Half mammalia, half pisces, with a serious dollop of aves. How did it procreate? Perhaps not the question to ask at this moment, though he had no doubt Rose would take it in her stride.
‘This animal was washed downstream during the floods and we managed to retrieve it. I have to tell you we tanned it, then Pa was able to procure some arsenical soap and we stuffed it with a hotchpotch of old … rags.’ She gave a rather embarrassed laugh. ‘Mostly old nightdresses and a chemise because finer material is more suited, helping to retain the true shape.’
Taxidermy: the art of collecting, preparing, and mounting objects of natural history recommended for the use of museums and travellers. He’d read in one of the journals only recently of a newer method using some other chemical.
‘And this…’ She turned the specimen onto its back and lifted the back foot. ‘This is the venomous spur. That is why Pa cannot be in London. He was spurred.’
‘Surely not. The animal’s barely two foot long. It couldn’t contain sufficient venom to harm a man.’
She looked down her aquiline nose at him, nostrils flaring slightly. ‘Believe me it does. I witnessed the spurring and helped my mother nurse Pa until I left.’
‘What symptoms?’ His voice sounded sharp, as though he was denying the truth of her statement. It wasn’t what he intended, her words held him captive.
She didn’t miss it, and raised a sceptical eyebrow quite prepared to accept his challenge. ‘The pain was intense. Paralysing. Pa drifted in and out of consciousness. Within half an hour his entire arm was swollen to the shoulder and quite useless, and his leg was not much better.’
‘And his pulse rate?’ He snapped the question.
‘Very low. Suffering from shock without a doubt.’
An adequate diagnosis. ‘And his vision and speech were impaired?’
‘Yes. And vomiting persisted for days. Mam was concerned for lockjaw but it didn’t eventuate.’
‘Most intriguing.’
‘Made worse by the fact he was spurred twice, once in his arm and once in his leg.’
‘And he has made a full recovery?’ Whatever made him say that? Her face collapsed and tears filled her big, brown eyes.
‘I don’t know. I left four weeks after the attack. Pa already had passage booked and was determined his work should reach Sir Joseph.’
Which is why Julian received such short notice of her arrival. His mind darted back to the letter, the flowery female hand in total contrast to the contents of the letter. ‘And you wrote the letter to Julian on your father’s behalf.’
With a look of excruciating guilt she nodded her head. ‘With my mother’s assistance. Yes.’ She lifted her chin as if defying him to call her to task for her misdemeanour.
‘Admirable.’ Like everything else about this girl. Admirable.
Before he had a chance to form his next sentence the door flew open and Julian lurched in. One look was enough to ascertain his state. Drunk, as drunk as the lord he believed he’d one day become, and from his scowl and dishevelled appearance in no mood to meet his sister.
‘So the doxy’s landed.’
There was no doubt Rose understood his words. She reared back in her chair, her eyes wide and her face bone-white as she stuffed the creature back into the burlap sack.
An overwhelming desire to put himself between Rose and Julian shot Finneas to his feet. ‘May I introduce Miss Winton, Rose, your sister.’
The drunken sot ignored him, strolled across the room and stood warming his hands above the fire then turned very slowly. His gaze raked Rose from the top of her glossy curls to the toes of the particularly disreputable pair of boots peeking from beneath the hem of her dress.
After an agonising minute he sauntered across the floor until he stood right in front of her. ‘My pleasure.’ He gave a bow that skirted the edge of civility and sat down at the chair nearest the window, his index and little finger beating the familiar irritating tattoo he favoured. ‘I have a question, about the Antipodes.’
She lifted her chin and stared right back at him in challenge, ‘What might that be?’
In that brief second their likeness became apparent. What was arrogance in Julian was strength of character and determination in Rose. She would hold her own and if she didn’t he would make damn certain the cad was called to question.
‘I have a fascination with the place.’
She inclined her head. ‘As I would expect. It must be difficult knowing nothing of the land of your birth, your heritage.’
Oh, very nicely done. That put the boot on the other foot.
‘A relief, I can assure you. A place populated by criminals, the dregs of humanity.’
‘And your birth mother.’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
Finneas cleared his throat, threw his shoulders back and offered what he hoped was an intimidating scowl. How dare Julian patronise his sister in this way. The insufferable bastard was as much convict stock as Rose and nowhere near as graceful. When he got him alone he might remind him of that. It would go down a treat at Brooks’s if a word was slipped into the wrong ear. He’d be hounded out of the place.
‘Present company excepted, of course,’ Julian offered with a smirk and picked up the two-fingered tattoo again.
He had to stop this now, everything to do with the ridiculous notion that the colony was nothing more than a dumping ground for England’s outcasts. Next he’d be telling her that her chains were rattling.
‘So you’ve spent your childhood on the land, outside Sydney.’
‘I did. We moved to a place called Agnes Banks when I was three.’ A gritted smile. ‘About forty miles from the centre of Sydney Town, close to Parramatta.’
‘There is a gaol there?’ Julian produced a rapid succession of blinks and a snort of cynicism from the back of his throat.
‘My mother has served her sentence and my father, Charles Winton, is a freeman. He was never a convict.’
‘Charles Winton.’ His voice carried something of a snee
r and she lifted her chin.
‘Yes, my father.’
‘And Charles Winton, this eminent man of science … Why have I never heard of him?’
An out and out lie. He’d said he remembered Uncle Charles. Nevertheless Julian had as little interest in science as he had in the plight of the homeless who swarmed the London streets.
‘It is for that very reason I have come to England in my father’s stead. This research breaks new boundaries. We have evidence that the female platypus lays eggs and suckles its young. It is an animal sui generis. A species all of its own, unique.’
Julian peered down his long nose in the most unpleasant fashion, his nostrils flaring then pinching.
The sweet young thing didn’t appear to be in the slightest concerned. Her nervousness when she’d first arrived at the house appeared to have dissipated now she was on familiar ground. She glanced up at him and then delved into the burlap sack and revealed the creature, her hands running across the perfectly preserved thick brown pelt. ‘Ornithorhynchus anatinus is something of a paradox. It appears to possess a three-fold nature: that of a fish, a bird and a quadruped and is related to nothing hitherto seen.’
Julian snorted and poured himself a shot of brandy not bothering to offer the decanter. He took a long slug then peered more closely at the specimen. ‘Is it an amphibious animal?’
‘Oh yes. It lives in a burrow in the riverbank and seeks its food from the crustaceans living in the mud and sand of the waterways.’ She ran her fine finger along the beak of the animal. ‘It can eat up to half its own weight daily.’
‘And you intend to present this creature to the Royal Society?’
‘With my father’s extensive notes and drawings, yes. As I said they break new ground.’ She inclined her head to the sketchbook on the table. ‘Research from direct observations requested by Sir Joseph Banks,’ she added throwing down her trump card.
Finneas stood and picked up the leather-bound sketchbook and flicked through the first few pages. ‘These illustrations are remarkable. Mr Winton is responsible for them?’