‘I take it your offer of Mookaboola still stands, Father?’
Kentigern nodded but had clearly grown impatient.
Felix pressed on. ‘The moment I force Mungo to return Vianna, we will depart for Mookaboola. Mother need never know of my mistress’s existence.’
Kentigern rolled his eyes to heaven, clearly doubting Felix’s chances of keeping anything a secret from Albruna. ‘Bon chance!’ he said dourly.
• • •
The sun suddenly dominated the rain in the usual summer battle for supremacy, drying the road so rapidly that heat steamed from its surface. This morning Severin House had an air of shabby decadence. Felix soon identified the cause. The garden was being trammelled by tradesmen removing the mansion’s furniture, stacking it on waiting carts and wagons.
Two slatternly females burst out the door of the servants’ entrance, shrieking in delight and armed with quality gowns that he had little doubt belonged to Vianna. Felix hurried to the main entrance determined to put a stop to the theft.
In the vestibule he handed his card to a man he’d never seen before. ‘Please inform your master Severin I must speak with him immediately.’
‘No master of mine, Sir. I’m the bailiff. Severin’s shot through, he has.’
Severin, it seemed, had already vacated the place by the time word of the police raid drew a swarm of creditors to strip the place of whatever could be sold in lieu of his debts.
‘How do you know he won’t return?’ Felix asked.
The bailiff gestured towards Severin’s office. The iron safe was empty, all documents stripped from his desk. ‘Clean as a whistle. The louse, begging your pardon, Sir, the gentleman made off with everything of value, his carriage, his mistress’s landau, horses and all.’
‘I recall he owned a fine portrait of Venus. Is that . . . ?’
‘Gone too. Would have brought in a pretty penny. Her being a famous lady of pleasure,’ he said with a wink.
Felix stiffened. ‘I’ll have you know I am a friend of Madame Francis. I wish to speak with her lady’s maid.’
‘The darkie? Gone walkabout no doubt, you know what they’re like,’ the bailiff said mildly. ‘All his servants have pissed off too, Sir. Must have been quite a fracas here last night. A naked mermaid and all – and on the Sabbath too!’
Felix blushed but assumed an air of moral superiority. ‘Look here, my good man, Madame Francis has done no wrong. Her personal property is no part of Severin’s debts. I shall collect it myself. Glad to compensate you for your trouble.’
He reached for his wallet in the customary manner that residents of Sydney Town circumnavigated the law.
‘I regret it’s too late, Sir. It’s all winging its way to Sam Lyons’s auction house. Anything worn by the notorious Sydney Town Venus will sell like hot cakes. I dare say the Venus’ll bob up somewhere, Sir. Women of her kind always make a killing off rich gentlemen one way and another, if you gets me meaning?’
Felix turned his back on the bailiff. It was beneath his dignity to bid for her jewels and apparel in public, so he would order new gowns suited to her new life.
He hurried up the marble grand staircase but halted on the threshold of Vianna’s bedchamber, stung by an acute sense of loss that his first romantic meeting alone with her had taken place in this room, designed for pleasure, but now stripped to the bone, sad and tawdry by daylight. Nothing if not thorough, Felix checked the hidden closet to discover the sole item abandoned by scavengers – a small green broken bottle of physic, labelled: ‘To be Taken by Mouth at the end of each Month’.
Felix could only guess at its purpose. He had heard it was rare for courtesans to give birth. The words reminded Felix how unworldly he was. During his only previous liaison, with Maria Navarro, he had never given thought to the possible consequences of fathering a child, but being conscious that the dreaded syphilis was a death sentence, he had used a gentleman’s sheath for his own protection. This broken bottle was a sharp reminder. My lady is now my responsibility.
On his return to Rockingham Hall, Felix ran headlong into Mungo, leaving their father’s office. Before Felix had time to demand to know where Vianna was held hostage, Mungo seized the initiative. ‘I’ve just briefed Father about last night. We need to talk in private. Upstairs. My chambers. On the double.’
Felix was infuriated to be left standing there, stripped of his moral high ground. What gall! He’s acting like he’s the hero instead of the perpetrator. I’ll be damned if I allow him to walk all over me. The tables are turned, Mungo Quayle!
Mungo stood in the old schoolhouse by the Juliet balcony, looking across the garden to Jane Quayle’s whitewashed cabin and his stables, when Felix stormed into the room.
‘I demand to know what you have done with Vianna.’
Unperturbed, Mungo held up a hand to halt him. ‘All in good time. I’ve just assured Father that Vianna is quite safe. He agrees she must be given time to cool down – not pressured by either of us into making her decision.’
Felix was thrown by Mungo’s high-handed ability to get his father on side.
‘How dare you discuss my private affairs with my father! Vianna is my legal responsibility! Where the hell is she?’
Mungo gestured to the far end of the garden. ‘There’.
‘Good God. Held hostage by Jane Quayle?’
‘Don’t be a damned fool. Not in Mother’s cottage – in my place. Don’t worry, your legacy is safe. You’ll inherit all his rural properties and you and Mrs Less cop Rockingham Hall. But the stables are mine!’
‘The stables! How can you insult that lovely girl by putting her in the stables?’
‘It’s no insult to put an honest roof over a woman’s head, Felix. I’ve offered her marriage. The best you could offer her was to be your mistress, hidden away in the bush from society. Safe to enjoy her body under the guise of saving her soul. What a bloody hypocrite you are, Felix.’
‘You dare call me that. You, a convicted felon, a thief and a liar. And God only knows the true role you played in Patrick Logan’s murder!’
The silence that followed his unplanned accusation stunned Felix by the instant change it wrought. Mungo’s face was blank but his eyes were glazed with an expression that on anyone else, Felix would have said was fear.
He felt a wave of shame for arousing bad experiences from Moreton Bay, given Mungo had saved the L’Estrange family name by assuming the major share of guilt. Felix knew his accusation was absurd. No one had been brought to trial for Logan’s murder but the consensus was he had died at the hands of hostile natives.
Mungo’s answer had the ironic edge that was his trademark. ‘Yeah, I’m sure you could write a book about my wicked life. But the only thing that really matters is Vianna’s future. Face facts, Felix. We both want her. But right now she doesn’t want a bar of either of us. She might even choose to return to Severin. The mongrel has a hold over her, blackmail of some kind. Believe it or not, I didn’t abduct the girl just to thwart your plans. I didn’t even know until yesterday you were a candidate in Severin’s game – that’s barely a cut above white slavery.’
Felix flinched but recognised that this was partly justified. ‘Better that I should be her protector than any other man.’
‘I could say the same of myself! Point is Vianna was Severin’s drawcard. When he wakes up that our police raid was a hoax, he’s not going to take it lying down. So what do we do to protect her from him?’
Mollified by the realisation Vianna was safe and close at hand, Felix reluctantly shared his knowledge. ‘Severin’s already bolted. His mansion’s in the hands of bailiffs. I have no doubt Vianna will honour my contract,’ Felix said stiffly, ‘she announced my name as her chosen protector.’
‘Only because I didn’t have the money to offer my contract.’ He jerked his thumb in the direction of the loft. ‘But possession is nine tenths of the law, Felix.’
‘Unless it’s an act of kidnapping!’
Mungo stalle
d for time. ‘I agree with Father. We must give her time to calm down. No pressure. No seduction. Agreed?’
Felix sprang to his feet. ‘While she resides under your roof? Who’s the hypocrite now?’
‘I’ll remain living here. My mother is Vianna’s watchdog. There’ll be no funny business with my mam in charge – from either of us. Jane Quayle is a Methodist, remember?’ Mungo said ruefully.
‘It would seem a most flexible moral code,’ Felix said and instantly flushed with embarrassment at this unintentional slur on Jane’s name. ‘I apologise, no insult intended to your mother – only to her son.’
Mungo was no longer smiling. ‘No doubt about you, Felix. Like mother like son.’
‘Don’t forget you’re a free man thanks to my mother’s intervention. She may be unable to forget past history,’ he said pointedly, in reference to Jane Quayle, ‘but she admires your courage above all.’
‘Will paid the full price. I only did what was necessary to survive. A lot of water has flowed under the Bridge of Sighs since then.’
Felix accepted Mungo’s bravado. Ashamed of his earlier, wild insinuation about Logan’s murder, he tried to make amends. ‘You were saved from the gallows and rescued from Moreton Bay. Isn’t that a sure sign of God’s love? You have many good years ahead of you, time to rebuild your life on a new code of ethics.’ God willing, hundreds of miles from Vianna.
Mungo gripped the arms of his chair as if to prevent himself belting Felix across the room.
‘Ethics? God’s love? You bloody fool. I saved my own damned life. And I’d face a thousand stripes of the cat before I’d ask for God’s help – or yours!’
The next moment Mungo resumed the light, brittle manner he had learned as a child to camouflage his pain. ‘As a kid we were told God is Everywhere. Well there was no sign of Him at Moreton Bay.’ Mungo shrugged. ‘But I did invent a survival code. I reckon any man who can survive Patrick Logan can survive anything. ‘But I’ll burn in hell before I relinquish what belongs to me.’
‘No man could doubt your courage, Mungo. Yet I pity you. On the eve of your execution you laughed in the face of death. Did your reprieve teach you nothing about God’s mercy and forgiveness?’
‘You know your problem, Felix? You play life by the Ten Commandments and expect to be rewarded. There are no rules in a penal colony – the Exclusives grab the blacks’ land and make a fortune from free convict labour. If God exists, He’s too busy to hand out justice and mercy to those of us at the bottom of the heap.’
Felix managed a tolerant smile. ‘I see you still cling to your simplistic ideas about atheism.’
‘Wake up, Felix. To survive in this Colony you need to make your own rules. When I saw the Dishonourable Severin exploiting Vianna, I had one choice. Take her first – argue later!’
‘But it didn’t quite work to plan, did it?’ Felix said coldly. ‘I shan’t force Vianna to honour my contract but given time she will see the merit of it.’
‘The last time we shook hands on a deal to play fair and square – we both cheated. As far as I’m concerned all bets are off.’
Felix flushed with anger. Their eyes locked in silence.
Mungo was dangerously calm. ‘Winner Take All.’
Felix rose with dignity but Mungo’s words halted him as he reached the door. ‘Father was involved in your contract, so he’s fully aware of Vianna’s notoriety. If you want to conceal that from Mrs Less, we’d best refer to her as Fanny – her true name, until she makes her choice.’
Felix departed, mentally cursing Governor Darling for saving Mungo from the gallows. Yet Mungo’s right about one thing. How long before Mutti discovers the Sydney Venus is living right under her nose – and that she’s agreed publicly to be my mistress?
• • •
Later that morning when Felix and his father were absent from the house on business, Mungo was approached by Cook’s daughter Molly, bearing a parcel addressed to Madame Francis, care of Felix L’Estrange.
‘Hey, when did this arrive, Molly?’
‘A black girl left it at the servants’ entrance. Who shall I give it to?’
Mungo seized his chance. ‘Leave it with me, Molly. I’ll see it’s delivered.’
Mungo hurried to the stables, only to be bailed up by his mother. ‘I thought I made it clear you and Felix were both to give the mermaid time alone. I’ll deliver that box.’
Mungo stood cap in hand. ‘Who’s going to read the letter to her?’
Jane capitulated with a sigh. ‘All right, read the letter. But keep your hands to yourself or I’ll boot you out the door, and that’s a promise.’
It was strange to see Vianna wearing his mother’s simple white blouse and handmade skirt of many colours, her hair loosely coiled on the nape of her neck. Her eyes were heavily shadowed by traces of mauve, suggesting a sleepless night. At first glance she looked like a little girl lost.
Her voice however had a distinct edge. ‘To what do I owe this honour, Mungo Quayle? I thought you’d be in court giving evidence about my lewd performance.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re safe,’ he said lightly. ‘I only came to deliver this parcel brought here by your lady’s maid –’
‘Wanda? Where is she? Why can’t I see her?’ She rose in agitation.
‘Sorry, she delivered it and disappeared. If I’d known I’d have brought her to you.’ He added gently, ‘It came with a letter. Would you like me to read it?’
Vianna wasn’t ready to accept any favours. She opened the box and made a rapid check of the contents: a white gown, delicate underclothing, a shawl, heeled dancing slippers, a bonnet, a parasol, gloves, a small reticule and, wrapped in a silk scarf, a brunette theatrical wig. Mungo caught the flash of sadness that shadowed her face when she discovered a child’s silk dress.
‘I made this for Daisy. Severin’s unlikely ever to reveal where she is, thanks to your interference.’
‘Forgive me, I didn’t know.’
The box also contained a small bottle and two books. One was a diary, the other a copy of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. He was touched by the way she reverently turned the pages of the novel that she could not read.
‘It’s a great story. The heroine’s name is Fanny, isn’t it? Perhaps we could read it together?’ he asked hopefully.
He read the flash of temptation in her smile and knew suddenly that if anyone could help him seduce Vianna it would be Jane Austen.
‘Perhaps,’ she said with a smile of acceptance. On handing him Wanda’s letter, she gestured to him to take a seat.
God bless you, Wanda. He was caught by surprise at the meticulous spelling and grammar coming from the pen of an Aboriginal servant.
‘My Lady,
I do hope this finds you at the address on Mr L’Estrange’s contract. I was shocked by the events of last night which gave me no chance to speak with you before the police officers took you away. I went to the courthouse to find out what happened to you. It was strange to find there were no charges laid of any kind. Here are a few things I managed to rescue before the bailiffs arrived. Inside the reticule you’ll find the necklace with the broken clasp you asked me to take to the jeweller’s to mend. Master Severin and Blewitt have disappeared, so I must search for work. May your gentleman treat you well. I shall never forget your kindness to me.
Always your friend,
Wanda’
Mungo was moved to see that Vianna’s eyes were brimming with tears. He hesitated before reading the postscript – but he had no right to withhold it.
‘P.S. This is the last bottle of physic Severin made you take each month. If your new gentleman takes proper care of you, I trust you won’t need it.’
Vianna quickly averted her eyes. ‘Wanda was loyal to the end.’
‘It isn’t the end, girl,’ he said softly, ‘it’s the beginning of something better – whatever you choose to do with your life.’ He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘No pressure from me. But allow me to h
elp you. You’d be doing me a favour if we could read this book together. May I call on you tomorrow?’
Vianna smiled through her tears. ‘No harm in that, I suppose.’
Mungo remembered to bow politely before taking his leave down the ladder.
Jane Quayle was waiting for him in the walkway, her arms akimbo.
‘My hands never left my sides, Mam,’ he assured her.
‘Be off with you,’ she said with a grudging smile, ‘You’re like your father as a young man. He could charm the birds from the trees.’ But she walked away shaking her head as if she didn’t much fancy her son’s chances.
• • •
Mungo had timed his next move perfectly. Albruna L’Estrange was about to depart in her carriage for the unknown destination that servants’ gossip claimed she visited each week. Her face registered faint suspicion when Mungo hurried to her carriage.
‘Mrs L’Estrange, I have a favour to ask. Not for me. A young girl badly needs help. I reckon you could hold the key to the problem.’
‘What is it, Quayle? She needs work? I am late for my appointment.’
‘No, it’s a delicate matter. Please treat it as confidential. I don’t want to raise her hopes. I came to you because of your work for the Benevolent Asylum.’
‘So?’ she asked warily.
‘I’m searching for a little girl who’s about six. Daisy was fostered or adopted without her sister’s permission. She’s heartbroken but has no funds to finance a search. I promised I’d find the kiddie. Will you help me?’
‘You may travel with me as far as the crossroads at South Head Road. So you had best state your case in brief.’
Mungo outlined the known facts and built up the emotional side of the story, skirting around its more scandalous aspects. At the conclusion, Albruna L’Estrange leaned forward and her voice softened.
‘The loss of a child is a terrible thing. I will do what I can to help you.’
When she set him down at the crossroads, Mungo had the sudden conviction he was seeing his father’s dragon lady for the first time, from a very different angle.
The woman’s human after all. I’ve got her hooked. But how would she react if she knew she was helping my cause – against Felix’s plan to have a woman in keeping? I reckon Mrs Less would be on my side. Get thee behind me, Satan!
The Lace Balcony Page 27