‘What do you mean?’
‘You were born with a condition so rare few of us encounter a case in our years of practice. Allow me to assure ye it will not prevent you enjoying perfectly normal intimate relationships. In simple terms, you were born with one female organ that did not develop – your womb.’
‘Are you telling me I can never –?’
‘I wish it were otherwise. You are a normal, healthy woman in every respect – except this one. Nature has not granted you the ability to give birth to a babe.’
Her voice was dry. ‘So I’m barren.’
‘I am indeed sorry. You must seek the love of children in other ways.’
Vianna stared at him for what seemed a moment outside of time. To distance herself from the words that damned her, she studied the items on his desk as if her life depended on her ability to memorise them. She licked her lips and silently accepted the glass of water he placed in her hands.
‘Just as well I never wanted any children, isn’t it, Doctor?’ She knew the voice was hers but the words sounded like a stranger’s voice outside her body. Only then did she recognise her flippant denial was a lie.
Since childhood she had had a vague dream, whenever she saw women suckling their babes, or when rocking Daisy to sleep in her arms, that some day there would be a special man who would find her, rescue her – and together they would create a child. The fantasy was now no more than an illusion. I feel numb. No feelings. No tears. No hope. Nothing.
She thanked Dr Gordon for his concern but refused the medication he offered her to calm her and help her sleep.
‘Jane will give me some herbal drink. No offence, Doctor.’
‘None taken, lass,’ he said gently.
In the waiting room Jane rose, searching Vianna’s face for an answer.
She’s wondering whether I’m pregnant to Severin – or to Mungo. How simple the solution would have been. Kill it – or keep it.
‘You were gone so long, Vianna. Is everything all right?’
‘Perfectly. He thinks highly of your knowledge of herbal remedies, Jane.’
Vianna covered their descent downstairs with a barrage of inconsequential chatter, leaving Jane no opening to question her. But the harder she tried to be light-hearted, the more seriously Jane observed her.
Mungo waved his hat from his perch on the driver’s seat. His eyes scanned their faces for any sign of trouble.
‘You ladies are fighting fit, I take it?’
‘Your friend considers me a perfect specimen of womanhood,’ Vianna said frivolously. ‘Good heavens, how hungry I am. I could eat a horse.’
Mungo gestured to the picnic hamper. ‘Chicken sandwiches, peaches, grapes. And a bottle of wine from the Master’s cellar to share his celebration with you, Mam, today being the fourteenth of January, the saint’s day of St Kentigern alias St Mungo.’
He leapt down to assist them into the cart. ‘I’m taking you on a tour of Sydney’s foreshores along the road that the convicts built to give Mrs Macquarie her favourite view of the harbour. We’ll picnic on the stone seat they carved out especially for her under an overhanging rock.’
With a click of the tongue, Mungo set the pony off at a brisk trot. ‘There’s a little bay where the natives chip oysters off the rocks. I’ll trade some tobacco. You can’t get oysters fresher than that, ladies. You’ll think you’re in seventh heaven!’
Vaguely aware that Mungo was in full story-telling mode, she held on to the bonnet being tugged by the breeze and forced herself to laugh in all the right places.
Her mind replayed the doctor’s unbearably sympathetic expression as he delivered the sentence she had never expected. The words held no future hope of reversal. Unless a miracle happened – she died and was reborn in another woman’s body. She could taste the bitterness that no fine wine would wash away.
I’m one of Nature’s mistakes. Severin was right. I’m only good for one thing. To give pleasure to men who pay me.
Chapter 29
A golden day the following week was heaven-sent for Mungo, ripe with opportunity. Felix was the unwitting cause, being clandestinely resident at Mookaboola, engaged in turning it into a showcase for his future mistress. The weather was perfect for Mungo’s own secret plan. A boundless blue sky with only the occasional wisp of cloud to prove it was not a trick reflection of the ocean. The sun was tuned to the right temperature – neither hot enough to burn a snow-white English complexion, nor cool enough to spoil his plans for a bivouac.
He dressed with care, albeit casually, in bleached moleskin trousers, a red neckerchief at the throat of his striped shirt, his gold watch chain linked across his sheepskin vest, a broad-brimmed bush hat on the back of his head – and his usual confident swagger.
He drove the L’Estrange wagon from the livery stables to the front door of his mother’s cottage. Hat in hand, he rapped on the new lion’s head knocker.
‘To what do I owe the honour at this hour of the day?’ Jane asked warily.
Through the archway linking the two downstairs rooms, he glimpsed Vianna, seated at the kitchen table. The cursory glance she cast his way before continuing to write on her slate told him two things. He was distinctly out of favour, and his mother had become Vianna’s ally.
What the hell have I done to offend Vianna? She’s been acting strangely ever since her visit to Sandy’s surgery. Mam says her fatigue is my fault, for ‘making the girl swallow the alphabet whole’. But Vianna’s keen to learn to read, so what’s the matter?
Mungo stated his case to his mother but pitched his voice to carry to the back of the house. ‘I’m off to the Illawarra to sort things out with the overseer of the sawmills. Local bushrangers are bailing up everything that moves, including bullock trains carrying cedar to Sydney.’ He stopped short. Hell, that’s hardly likely to entice her out. ‘Anyway, it’s a beautiful day. I wondered if Vianna might like to come for the ride – and a picnic on the beach. I reckon a mermaid gets hungry for the sight of the sea.’
Jane beckoned him inside. ‘Sounds like a good idea, Mungo. You’ve had the girl pouring over her books non-stop for days. She could do with a dose of fresh air.’
Vianna was cool. ‘Thank you, no. I never go out without a maid to attend me.’ Jane raised her eyebrows at Mungo in an expression that needed no words. ‘Well, sit yourself down, son. The water’s playing and you’d best get a cup of tea into you before you depart.’
Seated at the kitchen table, Mungo drained the teapot dry as slowly as he could, to give himself time to dredge up every ounce of charm he possessed in the hope of bringing Vianna around to his way of thinking. He sensed that Jane, while not openly taking sides, was subtly backing his cause.
‘It’s the time of the year bush animals are showing off their young, Vianna,’ he said in a wild exaggeration of the truth. ‘You’ve never seen anything as endearing as a wallaby mother with one joey’s head peering out of her pouch while she gives his little brother a lesson in bush survival. It’s natural for natives to hunt them for food, of course, but it makes my blood boil to see white men shoot ’roos for their pelts – and abandon orphan joeys to starve to death.’
Vianna stared at him wide-eyed. Her lip trembled.
That’s got her attention. As long as I don’t overdo the pathos, she’s hooked.
He was grateful that his mother never missed a cue. ‘Mungo’s been rescuing wounded bush animals since he was no bigger than a joey himself. My son might appear to be a tough lad, Vianna, but his hands are gentle and he knows just how to make sick animals feel safe. Many a time he’s sat up with one all night, feeding it every few hours, so I could catch a bit of sleep.’
Vianna was impressed enough to put her slate aside. Jane riffled through the drawer of the dresser and withdrew a calico bag, a small blanket and a baby’s bottle.
‘Here, lad, just in case you find another of God’s little creatures injured.’
Mungo packed the articles in his saddlebag and aimed a look at Via
nna balanced between respect and regret.
‘Sorry I can’t change your mind, Vianna. It’s hard to drive a wagon over rough bush tracks and cradle a sick animal at the same time. But I appreciate how important a chaperone is to protect a lady’s reputation.’
‘I’d offer to accompany you, lass,’ Jane said quickly. ‘But I promised the Master I’d make him a herbal infusion to help the poor man get a few hours’ sleep.’
That was the excuse Vianna’s pride needed. ‘I wouldn’t want an animal to suffer on account of my reputation – such as it is.’
Mungo gave his mother a quick farewell hug then lifted Vianna up onto the seat of the wagon he had loaded with boxes, casks of grog, tools and bedding. Jane rushed back to the kitchen and returned with a pot of stew ‘to save time’.
‘Thanks, Mam. I reckon we’ll be back by sundown. Can’t be sure exactly when – so don’t worry. The lady’s in good hands.’
Accepting advice, Vianna had changed into Jane’s stout walking boots and was armed with a shawl, shady hat, gloves and a lace parasol as a sop to her vanity.
By the time they reached the Gothic toll gate on the Parramatta Road, Mungo was whistling a haunting Irish air. He had made no attempt to open the conversation, counting on Vianna’s curiosity being too strong for prolonged silence.
‘It would seem you’ve packed enough food to feed the 57th Regiment of Foot. Do you plan to drink all that grog yourself?’
‘The L’Estrange sawyers and bullockies will make short shift of it.’ He jerked his head towards the rifle. ‘That’s in case we run into trouble.’
‘Bushrangers?’
‘More than that. Where we’re headed there’s growing hostility between the settlers and some native tribes. The outbreak of smallpox in ’29 and ’30 wiped out a lot of them along the South Coast – not surprising. I reckon after thousands of years isolated from us, they probably don’t have much resistance to white man’s diseases. Anyway, it’s hardly surprising the remaining tribal men are angry. Herds of cattle have taken over their hunting grounds so they’ve lost a lot of their sources of food. And the place is rife with convicts who bolted south.’
Vianna tried to put a brave face on the news. ‘How far away is the Illawarra? You told Jane we’d be home by sundown.’ ’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t exactly say which sundown. That’s the exciting thing about the bush, Vianna. You can never predict what adventures you’ll have when you’re a hundred miles from nowhere. Anything from being baled up by bushrangers to a broken wheel or lost horseshoe, or mosquito bites and snakebites. So I always come prepared for anything – especially when I have a lady on board.’
‘Ladies are a specialty of yours, are they?’
‘I had my fair share – before my holiday at Moreton Bay. ‘I didn’t live like a monk, you know.’ Maria Navarro and her girls for the most part.
He began singing ‘The Black Velvet Band’ and as he expected, Vianna’s sweet, true voice joined him. She sang the words as if they were drawn from her own life.
Mungo felt light of heart. Their voices blended well, a good omen.
Later in the day, on reaching the crest of a high mountain pass, Mungo drew the wagon to a halt and presented his companion with a sweeping view of the coastline, where the intense blue ocean met the skyline, only one shade lighter. On the horizon was the minute white speck of a ship under sail, so distant it appeared stationary.
‘It’s odd to think that ship comes from a world I’ve never seen. The native lands of my Mam, the L’Estranges – and yours too. Do you ever feel homesick?’
‘I miss England’s spring – and snow at Christmas. But all my family are dead. Daisy and I are the last links in the chain.’
Moved by the catch in her voice he gestured towards the expanse before them. ‘Hey, this is your home now.’
Vianna remained silent.
Below them, stretching as far as the eye could see, a silver crescent of sand lay in wait for the rhythmic return of rolling lines of white-crested waves thundering onto the beach, sucked into the sand and drawn back beneath the next giant wave. Distant cliffs stood like giant bookends north and south of the beach, the ocean shooting up like a fountain each time the breakers smashed against the huge boulders fallen from the cliff faces that held the ocean at bay.
Vianna threw her arms wide as if to embrace the scene. ‘It’s huge. I’ve never seen anything like it. Such pure white sand. Not a soul in sight.’
‘Glad you like it. I paid a fortune to hire it for the day,’ he said, straight-faced, and was rewarded by a sidelong smile.
The place he chose for their picnic displayed a superb combination of nature’s gifts. He pointed out its advantages, the deep cave with an overhanging ledge to protect them from all weathers, tropical palm trees for shade, the beach only a stone’s throw away, and a freshwater stream that gurgled from the base of the waterfall that fell through a cleft of the mountain pass towering above them.
Wallabies played in groups in the open grasslands in the lush, tropical valley between the hills. The bird life was amazingly diverse, noisy, multi-coloured, swooping in concurrent patterns. Vianna was anxious they would collide in mid-air.
The champagne Mungo had ‘relieved’ from his father’s cellar he wedged between rocks to chill in the freshwater stream.
Vianna looked nervously at the approaching figure of a young native, armed with a cluster of spears. Trailing a few paces behind was a young black girl carrying a dilly-bag on her back from which a tiny babe’s head protruded.
Mungo rose to greet them with a broad smile and politely offered his name along with a pouch of tobacco and a tin of tea. The young black man accepted the gifts and reciprocated with two fine fish from his catch. He wore nothing but a glistening white smile and a skimpy piece of red cotton hanging from the belt at his waist. Vianna quickly averted her eyes but managed to draw a shy, fleeting smile from the girl, now cradling the lighter-skinned babe.
Mungo chatted with the young native before the pair went on their way.
Vianna was curious. ‘I thought you said the natives were hostile. He seemed friendly to you – but clearly didn’t want to know me,’ she said.
‘Aborigines avert their eyes to be polite. To stare is very bad manners.’
The ridges of scars across the native’s chest and arms had been a sharp reminder to Mungo of the stripes from the lash that would forever scar his own back. His ceremonial scars are worn with pride, badges of manhood and courage. Mine are the scars of punishment and injustice. As he unpacked the wagon, Mungo tried to block the searing images of Moreton Bay.
‘I’m thirsty, Mungo. Would the champagne be cool enough to suit your palate?’ Vianna asked plaintively.
He laughed in relief, glad to return to the reality of a beautiful girl’s thirst. And his own hunger for the night that lay ahead. He wanted to stay here forever.
Champagne and the heat of the sun went to Vianna’s head, changing her mood to childlike pleasure as Mungo had hoped.
‘I’ll cook the fish. If you want to cool down, don’t wade in any deeper than your knees. The undertow’s so powerful it would drag you out to sea and to New Zealand before you could say Jack Robinson.’
‘Isn’t it against the law to swim in daylight hours?
‘Maybe in Sydney Harbour. No traps around here for miles.’
‘I’ve only got one day dress. I can’t afford to ruin it,’ she said.
He soon had a small fire going and kept his back to her to give her privacy.
‘Strip off if you want. There’s no one but God watching. But keep talking, so I know you haven’t drowned.’
From the corner of his eye he saw her skirt drop to the sand, and the way she bunched her petticoats in one hand and waded into the water, skipping across the waves as they reached the shoreline, their size and danger diminished in the shallows.
Mungo felt a rush of pleasure, not only at the forbidden sight of her ankles and legs, but by her delig
hted squeals as the waves played against her body. His imagination rewarded him when she came up behind him and placed cold wet fingers across his eyes to block his sight.
‘Guess,’ she whispered.
‘A mermaid – the only one in the world who never learned to swim.’
He averted his eyes while she replaced her sodden petticoats with her skirt.
‘The first time I saw the sea was when our vessel sailed from Southampton.’
‘You came to the right place. Australia’s the largest island in the whole world,’ he said with pride. ‘We’ve got the Pacific off the east coast, the Indian Ocean off the west. We could circumnavigate the whole continent some day if you want.’
She paused in the act of collecting shells in the hem of her skirt.
‘You must plan to be very, very rich, Mungo.’
Her sultry tone reminded him that the coquette was never far from her repertoire. The look in her eyes excited him – yet left him unsatisfied. It’s Fanny I want. No tricks, no artifice. Will she never break free from the woman Severin created? Damn it all, it’ll take time. I can wait.
‘I’d best feed you – and try the rest of the L’Estrange wines.’
Vianna sat with her knees folded under her skirt like a schoolgirl, devouring a mango with little cries of ecstasy. Mungo translated them into imagined cries of her pleasure in bed. With Severin. With Felix. With any man but himself. He gave himself some firm advice. Jealousy is the price I must pay for a girl with a past. If she was an innocent virgin she wouldn’t be Vianna. I must accept her for what she is. My once – and future – wife.
Curiosity was never far from her mind. ‘That young black girl we met. Why was her babe’s colour so much lighter than theirs?’
Mungo knew the chances were the babe had been fathered by some white man in an act of rape. ‘It’s known that a full-blood Aboriginal babe isn’t born black like its parents. For the first few weeks of its life it’s a light chocolate colour. His real skin tone begins at the fingernails and spreads. His parents, anxious for their newborn to grow as black as they are, rub his skin with charcoal or wombat fat. Not only to make the babe look darker, like them, but to protect his tender skin from being burnt by sun and wind. They’re very happy when his skin turns black – except for the palms of his hands, which remain pink.’
The Lace Balcony Page 31