The Lace Balcony

by Johanna Nicholls

  Vianna gasped, confused. ‘So it was you. Why?’

  ‘I borrowed them. When my money was exhausted I used ’em as a talisman in my final ‘desperate’ wager, to tempt James to continue to play. It enabled me to win all his money – as planned.’

  Vianna felt cold with shock. ‘Are you saying that this – talisman represented me? That if Dalby had won, he’d have won the right to bed me for the night?’

  ‘Of course, m’dear,’ he said patiently. ‘That was the whole point of my request for our separate rooms.’

  ‘So if you had lost – I was dispensable.’

  ‘Trust me, Vianna, I never lose.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Come. Time to return to Severin House.’

  When they reached the carriage Blewitt was smoking a clay pipe, his cheek stained with blood.

  Severin cast him a cursory glance. ‘Consider yourself lucky, Blewitt. I seldom miss my target.’

  Blewitt nodded. ‘I know.’

  As he helped her into the carriage, his words were tender. ‘You do know I love you, Vianna.’

  Love. The word was now more obscene than anything he had ever done to her.

  En route to the next staging inn where she would wash Blewitt’s blood from her face, Vianna recalled the Chinese proverb used to describe Severin by Ah Quong, a Chinese trader. He had offered to pay whatever price Severin named to release her if she agreed to return to China as his concubine.

  Vianna replayed the phrase in her head, the perfect definition of the two faces of Severin, words she would love to see carved on his tombstone.

  Street Angel – House Devil.

  Chapter 15

  Mungo was determined to work hard and do a good job for his father – whatever that entailed. But at the same time he was desperate to direct his energies into his search for Fanny Byron. One last port of call was necessary – the terrace house on Foveaux Street.

  Some things never change. The third step of the rickety staircase still creaked when Mungo began to ascend the stairs that in years past he had taken two steps at a time on his frequent visits here.

  Essie, the cook-cum-housemaid, stood watching him from the doorway to the kitchen. At her heels a runt of a boy eyed him with a calculating look as if to judge whether Mungo was likely to cause trouble. Essie might well have been a true sister of Maria’s, close to her in age, but a pallid version of Maria’s dark-eyed Corsican beauty. The ‘sisters of pleasure’ came and went, but Essie had become part of the furniture.

  Mungo paused on the stairs. ‘How are you, Essie? It’s been a long time. Mungo Quayle, remember me?’

  ‘So it is! How you’ve changed! Good to see you, Mr Quayle. I can’t complain. My rheumatism plays up the very devil in winter, it does. But I now have this young lad to run messages and call the traps if needed, so that’s a saving of my poor feet.’

  She appraised Mungo’s well-tailored suit, a great advance on the slop clothing of his youth. ‘The lad’s good at polishing shoes, if you fancy staying the night.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,’ Mungo said cautiously, aware he only had a few loose coins in his pocket. ‘Is Maria alone?’

  ‘Indeed she is, Sir. Waiting for you – since she got your message.’

  Mungo passed a short, older man on the stairs, surprised to see that the tartan scarf around his neck barely covered the simple puritan-style jabot often worn by missionaries and clerics. The book in his hand looked suspiciously like a Bible.

  ‘Is Mrs Navarro free?’ Mungo asked lightly to tease the man.

  ‘Free to make her choices, as the Lord allows us all,’ the man said crisply and hurried out the front door.

  In answer to his knock, Maria Navarro’s voice was just as Mungo remembered, forever young and silky, retaining that delicious trace of an Italian-French accent that was wonderfully effective in bed. At the sight of her seated figure – the rustle of black silk, the curve of her throat above the full-bosomed cut of her gown – he was jolted back from the past.

  Three years had etched faint lines on a face that had never been classically beautiful but was unusually seductive. Mungo tried to hide his reaction to the evidence of time that the soft candlelight failed to conceal.

  He leaned back against the door and studied her, smiling. ‘You are just as I remember you, Maria. A woman no man could forget. Time has been kind to you.’

  ‘You have grown tall, so strong. I hardly know you, Mungo. You were a youth growing out of your clothes. Three years has made a man of you. A fine gentleman.’

  ‘An illusion, Maria. Nathan Bloom and Sons can take full credit for the clothing. As for the rest, Moreton Bay either kills a man or makes him strong. I have an iron gang to thank for the muscles.’

  He accepted the seat to which she gestured. Unaccountably shy, he felt reduced to the sixteen-year-old lad he had been on his first visit. He needed to lighten the mood.

  ‘I passed a bloke on the stairs who looked suspiciously like a God-botherer. Trying to save your girls’ souls, is he?’

  ‘He is a good man. A harmless diversion for the girls. He reads them an extract from the Bible each time he comes here. He is an ardent teetotaller. So he enjoys my special tea – unaware that I have Essie lace his cup with brandy.’

  ‘You’re a wicked, lady,’ Mungo said admiringly. ‘Don’t ever change.’

  He joined her in a glass of the red vinu Corsu from her native land, then turned the conversation towards the reason for his visit.

  ‘The last time we met I was fighting on all fronts: the law, the Exclusives and the banks. I remember the last night we spent here together. I left without leaving you – my thanks,’ he said avoiding the word money. ‘So I’ve come to set things right.’

  ‘It is not necessary, Mungo. You were fighting for your life,’ Maria said with a wave of a delicate hand liberally adorned with old-fashioned gold rings. ‘I am sorry that your partner paid the ultimate price.’ She made a hasty sign of the cross.

  ‘Poor bastard. I shall never forget that you were there at our trial. To know you were on my side – whatever the outcome. Your eyes, your smile gave me courage. One of the few sympathetic faces amongst the mob that was only there to enjoy our downfall – like Christians being thrown to the lions.’

  ‘You are a born survivor, Mungo. I had reason to remember you, too.’ She touched the gold brooch at her throat. ‘It shall be buried with me.’

  The words were said playfully, but he was suddenly conscious of the slight cough that punctuated their conversation.

  ‘You’re unwell? Is there anything I can do?’ he asked quickly, and from the smile in her eyes he knew she accepted that his offer was genuine.

  ‘A life of pleasure has been an easy life until now. No regrets. But it does not improve with time. No matter. As my countrymen say, ‘People should be mourned at their birth, not at their death.’ She said the words lightly, then smiled. ‘But I thank you, Mungo. If I am ever in need, you will be the first man I ask.’

  ‘I shall be honoured. You taught me all that is worth knowing.’

  He placed on the table the envelope containing his advance wages, virtually all the money he had. ‘This is simply a little present, no more.’

  He was aware he was tiring her. One half of him wanted to make love to her, not from need but to show her the man he wanted to become, a lover giving rather than simply taking. The other half of him was unsure about how to tell her the truth. She provided the answer like a gift, with a wise smile that began in her sad dark eyes and touched her lips.

  ‘You would like to stay the night, but you cannot. You are in love, I think.’

  Mungo tried not to look relieved to share the truth. ‘You always could read me like a book, Maria. It’s crazy, I know. But I feel sort of married. To a girl I only met once – the day before Will Eden was hanged. But somehow she’s in my blood. I can’t be free until I find her again – wherever she is. You understand, don’t you? Otherwise I would want very much to sta
y –’

  ‘Mungo, Mungo, don’t apologise. Falling in love at first sight is powerful magic. May you find her – and be loved in return.’

  When Maria offered her hand, he held it but on impulse kissed her on both cheeks in the French way.

  It was then he saw the sadness in her eyes that her sweet, professional smile could not belie.

  I’ve told her the truth, but all I’ve done is hurt her. What a bastard I am.

  ‘This is not the way I wanted to say goodbye to you – of all women, Maria.’

  Maria whispered softly in her native tongue the seductive proverb that he had first heard in bed with her, a phrase that needed no translation. When the month of May arrives, women’s hair grows and penises become strong . . .

  Mungo was moved by her invitation. ‘I want it too, more than ever,’ he said, the lie straight from his heart.

  He gently scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, asking nothing of her except his own pleasure in giving her back everything that he had learned, to make her feel young and beautiful again.

  • • •

  Before the cocks crowed in the farms around the Surry Hills, Mungo left her sleeping, a smile curving her lips. He had been afraid to fall asleep in case he woke her during one of his nightmares.

  Disconcerted to find his boots were missing, he slipped barefoot down the stairs. The tiny messenger boy with the rickety legs was waiting to greet him, handing him his hat – and his boots, polished to a shine.

  Mungo raised an eyebrow, realising the lad must have slipped into Maria’s room during the night to retrieve them.

  ‘Thanks, lad, best shine they’ve ever had,’ Mungo said, relieved to be able to give the lad the last coin in his pocket.

  ‘This might look like an ordinary King George penny – but it’s special. It will bring you good luck.’

  The boy’s dark hooded eyes widened. ‘What about your good luck, Sir?’

  ‘Don’t worry, lad, I make my own.’

  He absently patted the boy’s head and hurried out into the cool night air.

  Maria’s words lingered at the edge of his mind. She’s right. Falling in love at first sight sure is powerful magic. I’m going to find Fanny again – and by hook or by crook, I’ll make her love me.

  Chapter 16

  Mungo awoke in confusion from a nightmare like no other he’d suffered. One moment he was being flogged to death on the triangle at Moreton Bay. Next moment, a red-coated officer galloped onto the scene, his sabre flashing in the sunlight. With one magical stroke he slashed through Mungo’s chains. A blast of trumpets heralded his announcement, ‘By order of His Excellency, Governor Darling, Felix L’Estrange and Mungo Quayle are free to marry Venus!’

  Mungo sat bolt upright, disoriented to find himself in bed in the old schoolroom at Rockingham House. A tray on the bedside table held a hearty breakfast. Stacked on the floor was a neat pile of old newspapers topped by a note saying: ‘To help you fill in a few blanks’, and signed ‘Your Half-a-Brother’.

  The dates of these colonial and British newspapers covered his lost years.

  Felix was an arrogant little stuffed shirt as a kid. But maybe he’s coming good. He’s sensed what it was like to be hungry for news of the outside world . . . Jesus, the whole colony seems to be busy defaming each other.

  Felix had drawn rings around items of likely interest. Logan’s murder was still fresh on his mind so Mungo shied away from lurid murder trials but his eye was drawn to the name James Pearson, whom he knew was chief organist at St James’s Church. Pearson had seen an Aboriginal woman being pinned down by eight men taking turns to rape her. He raced off and brought two constables to the scene where James Wright and James Hunter were caught in the act and arrested. There had been depositions from Pearson and the constables, but Felix had added a handwritten note: ‘The trial never came to court!’

  How bloody hypocritical! Those bastards got off scot free because blacks aren’t eligible to take the oath in court – because they don’t believe in the White Man’s God.

  Later he was intrigued by the account of Captain Fremantle taking formal possession of the whole western third of the Australian Continent. At the new Swan River Colony forty-acre land grants were being offered in exchange for three pounds of settlers’ capital in the form of livestock, farming implements or cash.

  This sounds like a subtle hint from Felix for me to head west. Whatever, it’s a golden opportunity to make my fortune without help from L’Estrange money.

  He was wryly amused by the copy of a hand-written letter Felix had attached, written at the Swan River Colony to his mother by Mrs Elizabeth Shaw, an English gentlewoman.

  . . . we are living like gypsies. You would smile to see ladies, children and working people, without shoes or stockings, carrying wood to make fires. His Excellency Governor Stirling received the gents on their arrival, barefoot and in his dressing gown, walking in his garden – for so they call it, but there was not a green leaf in it. When the Governor and Mrs Stirling paid a visit to a newly arrived lady settler she apologised for her appearance. The jovial Governor told her she need not be surprised, if when calling on them, she should see Mrs Stirling standing at the washtub. Dear Mrs L’Estrange, life here is a complete burlesque!

  Mungo grinned. You’ll soon get the hang of things here, lady.

  In Van Diemen’s Land Governor Arthur’s Black Line was manned by five thousand men crossing the island to round up the Aborigines. Seven weeks later they’d only netted one old man and a boy. And they claim the blacks aren’t as bright as us!

  Half the word had been fighting the other half – then swapping sides. France had captured Algeria, another revolution in Paris, Mysore was added to Britain’s possessions in India. The new American President Andrew Jackson had even attacked the Second Bank of the U.S. in his speech to Congress.

  The Royals had been busy. The Coronation of William IV came as no surprise. One of the rare times at Moreton Bay we had a few hours off to celebrate.

  The Pope had sanctioned the marriage of Maria II of Portugal to her uncle so he could become Regent. A year later the child queen was deposed and her ‘husband’ made king. Women cop it rough no matter who they are.

  Louis Phillipe had been made Citizen King of France. And a German lad, Kaspar Hauser, ‘The Child of Europe’ had appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be heir to a German Royal house.

  He ridiculed a ludicrous fashion note. Stiff collars are now part of a gentleman’s dress? You won’t catch me wearing one.

  Mungo’s head was reeling with his attempt to digest three years of world events at one sitting. He turned to Felix’s list of new books: Disraeli’s Vivian Grey, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and Heinrich Heine’s Buch der Lieder. I know enough German to translate his love poems and sweep my golden girl off her feet.

  At the thought of Fanny he sprang out of bed. The day ahead was his. But where to begin his search for her?

  • • •

  Riding along the lonely winding road that led to the South Head the sun was hot on his back. It was the perfect day to take his first ride with his father’s wonderful homecoming gift, a black mare of thoroughbred descent, Boadicea.

  The sun was shining as bright and gaudy as a rare, freshly minted British penny, the sky cloudless, the breeze sweet with the tang of eucalyptus carried across the harbour of Port Jackson on his left, the stronger winds from the Pacific Ocean on his right. Ahead of him stood Greenway’s grand lighthouse, named in honour of Lachlan Macquarie, the far-sighted Governor responsible for Sydney Town’s fine Georgian public buildings and churches.

  This road had been hewn from rocks by shackled iron gangs through bushland, land that felt so mysterious that Mungo, unable to deny the existence of ghosts after Moreton Bay, fancied he caught sight of one in the shadows. Was it the shade of some government man who had died in chains? Or a live black hunter stalking bush tucker?

  The shadow triggered
a rapid series of images of the first time he had escaped in chains . . . the relentless tropical sun burning his flesh . . . lying exhausted, his tongue swollen from thirst . . . the faces of black men with spears, peering down at him, puzzled and angered by the iron shackles on his feet . . . one dark face with a thin bone pierced through his nostrils held sweet water to his lips . . . with the light behind his head, he seemed no longer a man, but a black angel of mercy . . .

  The memory dissolved. Logan’s men believe he was murdered by blacks. I reckon it was bolters, desperate enough to kill him and risk being hanged for it.

  Mungo forced from his mind those other images he refused to remember.

  Riding along with Boadicea, he seized the blessing of the day. Total freedom. No manmade structures in sight now. No sound except the shrieks of sulphur-crested cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets swooping and spiralling through the bush.

  One moment he rode through heaven on earth – the next his world was shaken on its axis.

  The flash black landau gave no warning of its approach. It suddenly materialised like a phantom carriage from some dark legend of his childhood. Mungo felt Boadicea’s muscles tense, the reins jerked from his grasp as if by some invisible sleight of hand. The mare was unnerved, as if spooked by a ghost. The rhythm of her gait broken, she gave a shrill whinny of warning.

  The scene was back-lit by sunlight that outlined the occupants of the open landau. A fashionable man in a rakishly tilted top hat. A woman in white, her golden hair streaming around her head like the rays of the sun. Every nuance of her beauty was now so close at hand that Mungo caught the play of her changing expressions as the landau’s horses cut the distance between them.

  He felt a curious stab of pain and remorse, akin to what Manx women called ‘a small bone in the heart’. It can’t be for my sins – I have no remorse. And these are strangers – or are they? Why is my heart beating like the very devil?

  So strong was the feeling, Mungo felt as if this moment had been lying in wait for him – in tandem with the pleasure and pain he felt at first sight of her. Her half-smile, the sidelong glance she gave the gentleman beside her, the teasing wave of her hand as she dismissed some question – a lady very sure of her power over men.