Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  July 1921

  Angie lay on her unmade bed in the dark. The curtains were pulled tight and the oil heater turned up so high that the room felt like a stifling cave, sealed to allow not one scintilla of light to enter or atom of heat to escape. Most people would have found the atmosphere of such a room oppressive but Angie welcomed the way the darkness and heat crushed her with its almost palpable weight and shut out the entire world beyond. She was hiding from everyone just like she had when she was a child in her hedge.

  On the pillow next to her face lay a letter. It had arrived that afternoon and her hands had trembled as she tore open the envelope. The letter described the unexpected encounter with Adelina Fox and the accident that led to Freya perishing in the fire that destroyed the gallery at the Palace. Its writer had been there at the very end. She had tried to save Freya but had failed.

  I know there is little I can offer you by way of comfort or consolation except to reassure you that your mother succumbed quickly, overcome by smoke; her suffering was brief and she was spared the agonies of the fire. There was nothing I could do to revive or rescue her though God be my witness I tried. I want you to know this so you will not torment yourself with unwarranted nightmares about her final moments.

  Angie had stopped herself from tearing the letter to shreds in a fit of despair. Instead, she squeezed it into a ball inside her fist which she then used to punch the mattress over and over again as she buried her face in her pillow. ‘Stupid! Stupid!’ she shouted, smothering her cries so she would not be heard by anyone outside.

  Her rage was only partly directed at her mother for this final act of abandonment and only partly at Adelina Fox for being the cause of the fire. Its real argument was with the malign force of fate that seemed bent on destroying her family. At the white-hot centre of this rage burned the resentment that her mother’s death was the last act of a drama that had nothing much to do with Angie at all.

  For so long she had blamed herself for her family’s misfortunes. And then Freya had revealed the shameful secret of their past so that Angie could stop feeling responsible for Robbie’s death. While this released her from self-recrimination, it also pushed her to the edge of the stage, out of the spotlight. Angie was just an unfortunate victim, a bit player in a battle of wills between Freya, Adam and Adelina.

  Angie, it is natural for you to be angry with your mother for the dreadful way this has all turned out. But please understand, she is not to blame for what happened. As you know, I shared her conviction that justice only comes to those who are willing to fight for it and I admired her courage and determination to do so. Never doubt for a moment that she loved you deeply and that her efforts to reclaim the cottage were always motivated by her desire to secure your future happiness. Please try to forgive her and remember her for her best qualities and the great love she bore you.

  ‘Lies! Lies! Lies!’ Angie yelled, but without real conviction. She knew the letter-writer told the truth about her mother but she had to vent her anger even so. It was the only scrap of power she had left: to scream profanities into the void.

  For what seemed like hours, she shouted and punched and writhed on her narrow bed until her throat was hoarse, her tears exhausted and her body spent. She then smoothed out the crumpled letter again and lay it next to her tear-stained face on the pillow. She would keep it as the last tissue-thin connection with her mother that she possessed: a memento whose value might become clearer and greater over time.

  She wished she could lie in this dark, hot hole of a room forever and ever and never leave. On the edge of her exhausted calm, there loomed another crisis that she did not have the strength to face – might never have the strength to face. Was it up to her to tell her father the news that would surely kill him? Please God, spare me that, thought Angie. Poor Freddie. How cruelly fate had dealt with him. He had waited so patiently for Freya, believed in her plans and reassurances that they would return to their old life in Australia. He deserved a better end than this.

  And what should she do now? Angie asked herself, lying in the dark. Her whole life had been lived in the shadow of a lie, its meaning changed by her mother’s secret. Was she condemned to live the rest of her life in that shadow?

  A streak of light leaked through the curtains. Angie sat up. She realised that she was free. She had paid off her debt to God and to her mother and could now choose her own path. It was not how she had ever imagined freedom. This freedom was a vast lonely ocean, bleak, soulless, with no compass or map to show her the way. It demanded a journey into the unknown, the unimaginable. For the first time in her young life Angie did not have her mother to guide and instruct her. She had to decide what it was she really wanted. Freya had fought for her independence, her land, her dignity. What was Angie willing to fight for?

  Angie stood on the cliff edge of this uncertain future and felt its irresistible, vertiginous force, both seductive and terrifying.

  She decided she would begin again. Begin her life all over again.

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  Lisa

  Canberra, June 2013

  Sometimes everything changes all at once.

  Lisa had been bushwalking one day up at Blackheath, following the cliff-top track from Govett’s Leap. She was alone, carrying a light daypack with her camera, some water and a few chocolate bars, on the lookout for unusual and striking shots as always. On such a perfect day, she had mused on how the mountains were so rewarding and at the same time challenging for a photographer. Or any artist for that matter. They offered too much beauty. Images beckoned from every side, tantalising glimpses of the sublime in every distant blue and gold silhouette of ridgeline, every expressive sinew of gum branch or liquid dance of creek water or totemic rock face. Were she and her camera up to capturing even a fraction of it?

  She was a good half-hour into her walk when she heard a crack. A frisson of fear ran up her spine and she looked up quickly to check if one of the great gum branches overhead had split off. ‘Widow-makers’ they called some of these trees. A good friend of her father’s had been killed on a windless day from being struck down by a branch. But the crack had come from behind her. She turned around just in time to see something very few people ever see.

  A geyser of powdery dust exploded from the cliff opposite where she stood. She saw the grey and apricot-coloured precipice slump like the flesh on a human face afflicted by stroke. The tremor was almost imperceptible at first but then the landslide built momentum with incredible speed. A giant slab of rock detached itself, sliding and tipping with a crash into the valley. The initial crack echoed like a gunshot around the curve of the ridge, followed by the thunder of the avalanche. The forest on the slope continued to tremble violently in the aftermath.

  It all happened so fast Lisa did not have time to think of her camera. It was possible she was the only person in the valley to witness this scene and she immediately called National Parks to let them know where the rockfall had occurred. The tracks down below might now be impassable.

  For days afterwards she thought about this landslide. How long ago had the processes begun that climaxed in those few seconds of destruction? She tried to imagine the long accumulation of a thousand subtle actions: rainwater gathering in fissures drop by drop to freeze, expand and prise open cracks; the invisible onslaught of wind over and over, sculpting, abrading, gouging; the insistence of tree roots, probing, pushing, altering the weight of soil and stone; and the play of gravity itself, shifting and tugging. All these forces and movements on and on until, with that single loud crack, the point of crisis arrives with frightening swiftness and is over in the blink of an eye.

  Lisa had no sense of foreboding when Luke rang her at the Hotel Kurrajong on Wednesday to see how her research was going. Her only surprise was how pleased she felt to hear his voice. Much as she loved staying in hotels, especially those she knew well, there always came a time when she felt adrift and alone, wishing she were back in her familiar surroundings. />
  ‘I have something I have to tell you,’ said Luke. She could hear the note of urgency in his voice. ‘Two things, actually.’ He sounded both excited and nervous.

  ‘What? What is it?’ She sat on her hotel bed and lay back against the cushions. She was tired. She had spent three long days in the archives.

  ‘Well, I was at the Land Titles Office last week and I realised I hadn’t cross-referenced Freya Wood as the heir to her father. The name on the title deed to the cottage land would have been changed when he died.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘The title did not pass to Freddie Wood when he married Freya, as the law of coverture had been superseded by 1902. It stayed with Freya for her to dispose of as she thought fit.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Luke took a deep breath. ‘It appears Freya transferred the title of her land to your grandfather under some obscure legal instrument before the Great War. And then her lawyers Mendel and Sons tried to challenge the transfer in a court case in 1920. She lost. I don’t know what it means exactly, but it looks like Freya sold her land to Fox and then changed her mind.’

  There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the phone. Lisa knew that Luke was being diplomatic. She knew there was a much simpler explanation that was not flattering to Fox.

  ‘So when did she transfer the title to Grandad?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘January 1917,’ said Luke.

  ‘Wasn’t that after she and Angie left the cottage and moved to Liverpool to be near Freddie at the internment camp? And, according to Mrs Wells, Fox gave her cash to help her with the move and the rent?’

  ‘Yes, it was. But that doesn’t necessarily mean . . .’ Luke sounded defensive.

  ‘No,’ Lisa cut him off, her voice tinged with irritation, even anger. ‘But let’s be honest, Luke, it doesn’t look good.’

  ‘No. No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Hey, listen,’ she said more gently. ‘You don’t have to protect my grandfather, Luke. Or me. That’s not your job.’

  ‘Well, we could have an interesting discussion about what my job is, Lisa,’ Luke said quietly. ‘I guess we just have to see where the trail leads.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Which brings me to the other thing I have to talk to you about,’ said Luke, sounding excited again. ‘I’ve been contacted by a Beth Greenwood. She’s the great-niece of Jane Blunt, the Foxes’ governess. Remember her? The one Mrs Wells said was dismissed unfairly when Robert died? It turns out that Mrs Greenwood saw my ads in the local paper months ago and has been thinking about talking to me. She says there are some private papers we might be interested in looking at. They’re in the National Archives. I rang her and she’s sent written permission for you and me to access them. I’ve already emailed the permission letter direct to the Archives, filled out the call slips and spoken to one of the curators. I’ll send you the references.’

  This new lead seemed a very tenuous one to Lisa but Luke was convinced it was worth investigating. ‘I have an appointment at the Archives on Friday morning. Are they’re filed under Blunt or Greenwood?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘They’re under Glanville-Smith. Beth gave me a quick potted history. After she left the Foxes, Jane Blunt did a short stint as a Sunday schoolteacher. She then became involved in Spiritualism and adopted a new name as a successful medium with the Spiritualist temple in Springwood. She even wrote a pamphlet with Mrs Foster Turner, Australia’s most famous medium.’

  ‘Well, that is bizarre. Thank you for all this.’ Lisa smiled. ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘You too.’

  There was another silence. Lisa realised how much their conversation sounded like that of two friends. Was that what they were? Or more than that?

  ‘Listen, Luke . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When I get back, let’s have dinner. My treat. I’ll cook us something at the bungalow. I can show you some of the diary entries if you like.’

  Lisa held her breath. Was this too forward? Did this break the unspoken rules of their collaboration or were the diaries sufficient pretext for a dinner at her house?

  ‘Sure. That would be great.’ Luke sounded happy. ‘Let me know when you’ve gone through the Glanville-Smith material. Mrs Greenwood said the relevant documents relate to 1921. Copies of letters, mostly.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll call you on Friday. Take care. Bye.’

  When Lisa sat in the booth at the National Archives on Friday morning, she did not hear the crack coming. She began flicking through the correspondence files for 1920–21, including spirit photos – photocopies, of course, as the originals were held in proper archival albums. They were clever, these early photographic manipulations – simple double exposures using glass plates – but creepy and convincing nonetheless, especially for those who sorely needed to believe.

  As she flicked, Lisa’s eyes fell on one photo captioned The Palace, Meadow Springs, January 1921. She gasped. There was her grandfather Adam, sitting at a table with Adelina on his left. Someone had helpfully labelled all the faces in the photo in pencil. Lisa had never seen a photo of Adelina before; it was as if she had been erased from the Fox family history except as a name on a headstone at South Head. She appeared as delicate and white as stories about her suggested, but much more beautiful in this photo than Lisa had ever heard tell. A fragile and radiant beauty. Floating in a halo of light next to Adelina’s shoulder was the face of a young boy. Robbie Fox.

  What did this mean? Had Adelina tried to communicate with her son? It was not so surprising. A whole generation had turned to spiritual mediums for consolation. But what was the intention of this dismissed ex-governess returning to the Palace as a medium under an assumed name? Now, that was definitely strange, if not sinister.

  Lisa’s finger lighted on a sheet of faintly ruled blue stationery. It was a copy of a letter with the name of the intended reader but no address. The letter was dated 14 July 1921. But what immediately caught Lisa’s eye was the name: ‘Dearest Angie.’

  Lisa felt her heart bolt and her pulse surge. She took a deep breath. ‘Dearest Angie.’ A letter addressed to the mysterious, vanished girl, the girl at the centre of her family’s heartbreak. Angie, poor Angie. If she had been listening carefully, Lisa would have heard the crack of a landslide as she read:

  Dearest Angie,

  This is a difficult letter for me to write.

  I cannot begin to describe the pain it causes me to have to tell you that your mother has died in the fire that destroyed the new gallery at the Palace on the night of 13th July. The police may or may not successfully identify her remains and determine the cause of the catastrophe, but I believe you should not be left wondering about the truth and deserve to know the circumstances of your mother’s death.

  Let me begin at the beginning. I know you and Freya discussed her plans, but to be honest I do not know how much she told you. Some things you will know, others perhaps not. Because I believe you deserve to know the entire truth, I will try to clarify the whole story. Forgive me if I traverse territory already familiar to you.

  When Freya first sought my help, she told me that as far back as 1914, not long after poor Robbie’s death, she had formed a plan to punish Adam Fox for his cruel treatment of her. She had hidden her father’s last oil painting, The Valley, bequeathed to her as a gift, inside the walls of the cottage. As a skilled artist familiar with her father’s style, she made an exact facsimile and planned to sell this forgery to Fox. Her intention was that, when the painting was exposed as a fake, his name would be permanently tarnished and the resulting scandal might even ruin his hotel.

  I do not have to tell you how clever your mother was. She knew Fox would get the painting authenticated. So she gave him the original, which would pass that test and encourage him to show it off to the world when the time came. She then planned to steal into his gallery at night and substitute her forged copy for the real one. Then she would start rumours that Fox was passing off a fake as the last von
Gettner.

  The war came and Freya was driven from the mountains. She tried to protect her cottage by offering the painting to Fox. She did not anticipate the depth of his ruthlessness. He took the original painting, had it authenticated as she intended, but then lied and said it had been identified as a fake. He cut off all payments. As a penniless and despised German outcast with her husband interned, Freya had no choice but to agree to surrender her title to the cottage and land.

  As you may know, she wrote to him again this year threatening to make public their secret deal and his theft of her painting, in the hope of negotiating the return of her cottage. Adam ignored her. So Freya decided to go ahead with her plan in time for the grand unveiling of the von Gettner for the admiration of the world. That is why she and I stole into the gallery at night to replace the original work with its copy.

  We had almost completed the substitution when we came face to face with the last person we ever expected to see: Adelina. She came creeping into the gallery and startled your mother, causing her to knock over the kerosene lamp we were using. The freshly painted chamber was soon alight.

  I know there is little I can offer you by way of comfort or consolation except to reassure you that your mother succumbed quickly, overcome by smoke; her suffering was brief and she was spared the agonies of the fire. There was nothing I could do to revive or rescue her though God be my witness I tried. I want you to know this so you will not torment yourself with unwarranted nightmares about her final moments. I managed to escape with the original painting as she begged me to do with her dying breath. It is hidden away safely, back where it belongs. It is rightfully yours.

  Angie, it is natural for you to be angry with your mother for the dreadful way this has all turned out. But please understand, she is not to blame for what happened. As you know, I shared her conviction that justice only comes to those who are willing to fight for it and I admired her courage and determination to do so. Never doubt for a moment that she loved you deeply and that her efforts to reclaim the cottage were always motivated by her desire to secure your future happiness.