Currawong Manor

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘Of course, I only have your word on this!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, drumming her balled hands on her legs in her agitation. ‘I won’t allow you to plant these revolting seeds around my grandfather’s work. You’ve proven yourself ready to twist the truth for your own purposes.’

  ‘What about Dennis?’ Ginger said. ‘His son said his father saw the photos – and how revolted he was by their content.’

  Elizabeth stood up and towered over her grandmother. ‘Do you expect me to believe some secondhand tale about Rupert’s gardener? Anyway, he was obviously infatuated with Doris. I won’t have you discrediting Rupert’s art, Ginger, in some final confession because you fear your own death and you want to assuage your guilt. God! Out of all the people in the world, I’d never have thought one of his own Flowers would betray the memory of his art.’

  Ginger glanced at the roof-tops again, her eyes dull and filled with pain. She sighed before standing to face Elizabeth. ‘My conscience is clear now, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘You didn’t know Rupert. You don’t understand how tormented and complex he was. Don’t turn him into something he wasn’t, just to suit yourself. He’s the last person in the world to want a pedestal. You asked me for the truth, and I’ve given it to you.’

  Elizabeth grabbed Ginger’s arms and held her firmly. ‘Don’t you dare ever breathe another word of this ridiculous story!’ she hissed. ‘You keep going with this, and I’ll make sure you never get to have anything to do with Lois, forever. My mother has had enough to deal with. You keep your mouth shut. This conversation never happened. I will not have you slander Rupert’s art at the end of your life!’

  The shadows in the garden lengthened around the two women, standing together in what could have been an embrace when viewed from a distance. Through the mist in the garden, the swing creaked as if in protest. A lone currawong landed on a tree with a melodious carolling, and accompanying his call, other birds began to join the currawong with their soft voices as twilight fell.

  31

  Woman’s Mouth to Woman’s Ear

  Later that evening, Elizabeth and Nick shared a bottle of wine in her Nest, talking over the events of the day. Elizabeth studied Nick from beneath her fringe as he flicked through the photographs of Shalimar.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it all,’ he confessed eventually, throwing them onto the table, rubbing his forehead. ‘I’m still reeling at the thought that Dolly is Reg’s child, let alone that Ginger’s your grandmother. As for these photos, I’ve no idea what was going on in Rupert’s mind.’

  ‘How can we judge him, not knowing the full story?’ Elizabeth said, feeling guilty she hadn’t confided to Nick about Ginger’s confession. She had pushed her grandmother’s revelations about the photographs Doris had destroyed and Rupert’s final moments to the back of her mind, until she felt capable of deciding if she could share Ginger’s final secret. Thankfully, Nick hadn’t pressed her on what Ginger had actually revealed in the garden, respecting Elizabeth’s privacy, for which she was grateful.

  ‘All we do know is that his marriage to Doris wasn’t ideal, and he was traumatised by the war. Everyone said how much he loved Shalimar and how she adored her father. As for Dolly, it’s always possible she might have been Christopher’s love child after all.’

  Nick glanced at the photographs. ‘I can’t bear thinking about what happened to that poor kid. The terror of those cats coming for her.’ He shuddered. ‘And when I thought you were lost out there, Liz – I mean Elizabeth – it just really . . .’

  ‘I know, Nick,’ Elizabeth said. ‘You don’t have to say anything. I do know.’ Her words clung to the air, which suddenly seemed enchanted. Elizabeth was the one who broke the silence. ‘Do you know what I would like to do to you, right now?’ she asked, a sly smile on her lips.

  ‘Let me guess.’ Nick looked upwards for a second, as if considering. ‘It wouldn’t be taking my photograph with your antique camera?’ he teased.

  Elizabeth smacked her forehead theatrically. ‘Am I that transparent?’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested in me,’ Nick said. ‘What changed?’

  Elizabeth smiled as she touched his lips as if to silence him, exploring the outline of his mouth slowly with her finger. ‘The night in the cottage,’ she said. ‘When I feared freezing to death, or getting killed by whatever was outside, I realised how much I would miss one person. I’ve been dying for the chance to photograph you, I admit. And discovering just how unhappy so many members of my family were, Nick – it makes me want to claim any joy or pleasure I can from life.’

  Nick’s teasing smile dropped away, and his eyes darkened. He pulled her against him, and his lips met hers, tentatively at first, but then with increasing heat and intensity.

  Taking his head in both hands, Elizabeth pulled it back gently so she could look into his eyes. ‘Nick, I think with what we’re about to do, it’s perfectly fine to call me Liz.’

  ***

  It rained during the night, lulling the inhabitants of Currawong Manor into a deeper sleep and gently pattering on the roofs of the Nests. If shadows moved in the main house and the sound of children’s footsteps and calls came from the garden – if floorboards or the swing creaked, or soft tapping sounded on their doors – then the sounds failed to rouse the dreamers.

  In her cottage, Elizabeth and Nick were not asleep. Mouth to mouth, hip to hip, he moved inside her urgently, until Elizabeth cried out in a wave of pleasure and Nick quickly followed, moaning her name, the sounds of their lovemaking muffled by the rain.

  Dolly wasn’t asleep either. Just before dawn, she sat listening to the call of her old friend, the channel-billed cuckoo, in the garden outside. She smiled to herself as she scribbled in her notepad. The bird’s arrival after his long absence away wouldn’t please the currawongs of the manor, she knew, as he parasitised them. A few years back she had found a dead currawong chick on the ground under a nest. Safe and warm inside the nest itself was a cuckoo chick who had obviously killed the baby currawong by pushing it out. The cuckoo was being cared for by the currawongs, who looked worn out from trying to meet the demands of a gigantic chick not their own. But while the mother cuckoo looked on from a distance, they cared for it, and when the chick could no longer fit into the nest, off it flew with its real mother.

  ‘Nature will be nature,’ Dolly muttered.

  The stronger and craftier will always survive and flourish. Just as she had survived over Shalimar in the 1940s, by standing by at Mermaid Glen that day, refusing to enter the water, while Shalimar had drowned. Shalimar, who had everything life could have given her, but craftiness had won out, rewarding Dolly. And Ginger Lawson had survived, by giving up her own chick to others to care for. Yes, nature could be cruel, but there was a balance to all that happened, and wisdom to be gained from observing it, as her mother had raised her to do. Although her childhood had been deprived in many ways, she had never been bored in the bush.

  She reread what she’d written that morning in her notebook.

  I’m leaving shortly for a special place. Before I take my leave of this home that I’ve known for so long, I need to share a few secrets. For those with time on their hands and the inclination to read this strange account, I beg your indulgence on my penmanship – Mother, who was a fiercely intelligent woman, tried her hardest to teach me correct English and grammar, but I didn’t learn through normal channels. I hated the local school, where I was teased and mocked for my ragged clothes and the way I spoke. After a while I told Mother I would throw myself off Devil’s Leap if she kept sending me there, and so she gave in.

  It is my hope that my story will help the birds to settle at the manor. So many secrets and deceptions moulder in the shadows of the place. It’s no wonder the currawongs can’t rest easy.

  Dolly put down the notebook and sat back in her chair, closing her eyes. She could feel her mother’s presence so strongly this morning. The little cottage in the woods had been their entire world once. She had felt so
safe and loved with Mother. There had never been a kinder nor a wiser person. She remembered their old bedroom, the bed with its springs hanging down and the striped, stained mattress. And, in particular, she recalled a stormy night shortly after Rupert Partridge’s disappearance. The wind had been so strong, threatening to blow the tin roof off the cottage. Terrified by the loud bangs, she had cried out, and Mother had appeared at the door holding a candle, her long grey hair hanging loose down her back. Hearing Dolly’s fear, Mother had lain next to her, cradling her, mouth to ear, her whispery voice – so unlike her harsh daytime tone – lulling Dolly gently to sleep. Yes, as hard as Mother could be, when they lay close together in the dark night, her voice was always soft, soothing and gentle.

  ***

  ‘What is it, my Dolly? Why are you crying?’

  ‘I can’t sleep, Mother. Every time I shut my eyes I see Shalimar in the glen. And the storm is keeping me awake. I’m afraid. What if they find out about the cats and kill them?’

  Dolly’s mother put her candle down by the side of the bed and slid in next to Dolly, hugging her tightly. ‘We can’t change what’s happened, my Dolly. She’s dead now, poor Shalimar. Better she be in the world of the spirits than suffering here. And don’t you go worrying yourself over the cats. What happens to them is their own making. Do you want to hear the story of how you came to me, Dolly? Will that dark fairytale of a story blow the silly night terrors away?’

  ‘You’ve told me already, Mother,’ Dolly said, wincing at a loud crash of thunder. Indeed, her mother had already related several different versions about her birth. One oft-repeated was that Dolly was the child of a wealthy Sydney woman, who had begged for assistance when none of the city doctors would help her. By that stage she was so far gone that, shortly after knocking on their cottage door wearing a velvet red cloak, she had laboured that very night. And the angel born of the red-caped beauty was Dolly. Terrified of being disinherited from her father’s will, she’d abandoned her baby along with a large sum of money.

  Another story was that she had found Dolly sheltered in the immense roots of a tree in the woods after having been left there on a snowy winter’s night by a young village girl. Swaddled and unafraid, staring at the trees and sky with a few wild cats and quolls prowling nearby, and snowflakes drifting over the infant.

  Dolly’s mother laughed as her hand smoothed Dolly’s hair. ‘This story is the truth,’ she promised. ‘It comes from a far-off time when I was young and beautiful, with long silver-blonde tresses like a mermaid’s.’

  The wind rattled the roof, and rain beat hard upon the tin. Dolly smiled to myself, enjoying the mental image of her mother as a mermaid.

  ‘Imagine,’ Dolly’s mother whispered into her ear – a delicious sensation – as the trees and the world shook wildly outside. ‘I had a smile that bewitched all, and the charm and danger of a Siren. So beautiful, I haunted all the Mount Bellwood’s men’s dreams.

  ‘As you know, Dolly, I once lived at Currawong Manor in the maid’s room, assisting Rupert’s parents, and performing odd jobs around the manor . .’

  Dolly sighed happily, barely listening to her words but following the rise and fall of her soft voice. She already knew well the personalities of the manor, for her mother had given vivid descriptions of them. Christopher, the eldest, was handsome and the favoured child. His father, Reg Partridge, was a dour, crabbed old man whom everyone feared, and Ivy Partridge was his fearful, clinging shadow. She clung not to Reg but to her charming first-born son.

  The younger son, Rupert, was a quiet, sensitive child. Reg, who believed men should be active and sporty, and thought that anything connected to art was fit only for women, had loathed him almost from birth. Many’s the time Dolly’s mother had heard Reg’s roar as he demolished some new artwork of his younger son’s. Christopher was always interested in sports and hunting, he and his friends regularly heading into the woods with rifles, eager to slaughter anything that moved, whereas Rupert wasn’t keen on blood sports and would sit for hours with his nose in a book. He left the manor as soon as he was old enough to get away from his father, heading for Sydney. There he lived an independent life, meeting and marrying Doris in 1930, when they were both seventeen. The pair would often visit over the years for weekends and extended holidays, but Rupert showed no signs of returning to settle back at the manor. In 1932, they had Shalimar.

  Christopher was a handsome young man, admired by all, and Dolly’s mother had helped a couple of the village girls whose angels had been fathered by Christopher. This was another reason why Mr and Mrs Partridge turned a blind eye to Dolly’s mother’s activities; they were convinced that Christopher was destined for greater things than marrying a local girl, however pretty she might be. Despite the fact that Dolly’s mother and Christopher were chalk-and-cheese, the dollmaker still managed to lose her heart to him. As she herself said, heart and loins lacked brain’s common sense. Dolly had speculated that Christopher represented power, glamour, and perhaps her mother’s healing side sought to balance and nurture him. Dolly’s mother never admitted to this, but she may well have been lonely in Owlbone Woods with only the desperate women who came seeking her skill for company.

  When the second war came, most of the young men from Mount Bellwood were itching to go and fight. Christopher was no exception. Dolly’s mother believed that Christopher was ultimately punished for the way he treated the creatures of Owlbone Woods, for the same young men who made up the hunting parties were, in their turn, hunted on the battlefields, and their blood soaked foreign soil. But years before Christopher and his friends galloped to their deaths in New Guinea in 1942 with the Wild Hunt, Dolly was conceived.

  It was summer, 1937, and Miss Sharp claimed she must have attracted Reg’s attention without realising it. Perhaps the sour old man had cottoned on to the fact she’d been rutting with Christopher on and off over the years, and it was his own way of marking his territory. She believed Reg was jealous of his eldest son, whom everyone – including Reg’s wife – loved more.

  Dolly’s mother said it was she who had taught twenty-five-year-old Christopher everything he knew from a very young age, but she always mated with him when she knew the time would be safe. She understood moon time and was so busy and fulfilled in her liaison with Christopher, her domestic duties, and her midwife work that she failed to read the dangerous signals that Reg began to give out. She’d often told Dolly that times were different then, and she knew her lowly station. Reg must have been always observing her silently whenever she entered a room, served the family or disappeared into Owlbone Woods with Christopher. He listened for her set of keys that jingled wherever she walked.

  This is how it happened. Dolly only heard this version once, on that stormy night shortly after Shalimar had drowned, but she’d never forgotten. Mermaid Glen at the Weeping Rocks is where the rape occurred. The dollmaker had gone there to dream and bathe as she often did. It was also where she frequently met Christopher. When Reg first emerged from the evening mist among the gums trees and ferns, she’d thought for a second he was Christopher.

  When she realised who it was, she hurried to dress, but Reg was too quick, violently ripping away her clothes. At first she fought him, but he threatened to throw her out of the house and expose her trade to his friends in the police. And she was already well trained in obeying his orders.

  After the rape, he released what Dolly’s mother believed he really craved all along – violence, senseless pain and humiliation on one he believed to be beneath himself.

  The Partridges never mentioned the bruises nor, months later, her swelling belly. But she caught Ivy looking at her several times with a face twisted in suspicion and pain, although she knew Ivy feared more that the child was Christopher’s, never suspecting her own husband.

  Her vibrant fairy beauty faded overnight; her face became as hard as the stone of Devil’s Leap, her heart even sharper. She only allowed Dolly to enter her heart after she was born – this she told Dolly openl
y.

  Ivy had kept Christopher at home as long as she could, but finally he insisted on joining up. When he went away to war, excited by the chance to travel, fight and wear the uniform, Reg and Ivy were left alone together in the silent manor, where they engaged in avoiding each other. While Christopher was keen to volunteer, Rupert was conscripted in 1942. Neither man lasted long in the services: Rupert was soon discharged from his artistic duties in Bankstown’s military hospital. It became obvious he wasn’t up to documenting war, let alone fighting in one.

  In October 1942, just a week after Christopher’s thirtieth birthday, the currawongs were spotted in large numbers on the rooftop and spires of the manor. A few days later came the telegram every parent and sweetheart feared, delivered by a sympathetic-eyed postman. Christopher had been killed in the jungles of New Guinea.

  Currawong Manor’s occupants, including Dolly’s mother, were plunged into mourning. Neither of the Partridges could accept that Christopher would never return. Mrs Partridge renounced her Roman Catholic faith. Her face turned the same grey as her hair. She ate so infrequently, she appeared to shrink.

  The dollmaker discovered Reg’s hat and jacket hanging over a tree branch near Devil’s Leap. Many of the locals assumed that Reg, burdened by Christopher’s death and possible money worries, had taken his life at Devil’s Leap. But Henry Kelly claimed to his dying day that the old man had boarded the train at Leura Station on the day he vanished. Whether he had scarpered to Sydney or jumped to his death, he didn’t leave his family any explanation of his actions. Perhaps it was grief over his son’s death, money problems, guilt over the rape, or a combination of the three – no one will ever know.