The Lace Balcony

by Johanna Nicholls

  ‘A bloke named John Batman wants to call it Batmania, but I reckon it’ll be named Melbourne after that Pommie politician, Lord Melbourne. A few years from now Melbourne will be world famous in a new state called Victoria after the heir to the throne, Princess Vicky. And there’s going to be a tremendous gold rush – so rich it will attract thousands of diggers from every corner of the globe – and make your Dadda a very, very rich man . . .

  ‘. . . and I’ll build us a bluestone mansion in town and a country property in Australia Felix, where I’ll rescue orphan joeys and ’possums for you to play with. And you and Toby will go to school and learn to dance and sing . . . and we’ll travel the whole of Australia . . . cross the Nullarbor Plain to the West . . . grow vineyards in the Adelaide Hills . . . sail to Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand . . . untold exciting adventures wherever we go . . .’

  Despite all common sense and logic, Vianna was entranced by the vivid story he wove, creating the future before her eyes.

  ‘. . . the Melbourne Cup, a horse race for thoroughbreds that will be the most famous race in the world . . . and Melbourne will have a fashionable store for ladies named Vianna’s Boutique, where fallen women are rescued from the streets and trained as seamstresses to make gowns for the gentry . . . Hey, look that did the trick.’

  Lulled by the soft sound of his voice, Fanny was asleep in Vianna’s arms.

  Mungo was looking at them with that sad, soulful expression that infuriated Vianna because she had to fight to resist it. She tried to sound cool. ‘A lovely fairytale, Mungo. I could almost believe it will happen.’

  Mungo gently replaced the babe in her basket.

  ‘I’d best go,’ he said reluctantly.

  The sound of tropical rain pelting down on the tin roof made Vianna relent. ‘You’d best stay here. So I can make sure you get me to the ship in time. You can sleep on that quilt. But remember, tomorrow I’m sailing Home, no matter what.’

  ‘No argument from me, girl. I know when I’m licked.’

  His capitulation made her suspicious. She rolled over and rested her head on her arm. ‘There’s something you haven’t told me, isn’t there? About Severin’s wife.’

  ‘Promise you won’t lose your temper and frighten Fanny?’

  ‘Spit it out immediately – or you can sleep out in the rain.’

  ‘That stuff I said about the Governor and Severin’s wife was – a tall story.’

  ‘You mean just for once Severin was telling the truth? He is widowed, not married?’

  ‘Free as a bird. It’s perfectly legal for you to marry him tomorrow – if that’s what you want. Or you can have that French artist bloke, Bonnard. Don’t look like that – it was just a little white lie to get you off the boat for Molly’s wedding.’

  ‘A little white lie? That’s outrageous – even for you!’

  Mungo began playing with a strand of her hair, weaving it around his finger. ‘To be honest, Vianna, that lie – probably won’t be my last.’

  His hand slipped beneath the striped shirt of his she was wearing. ‘Truth is it wasn’t just for Molly’s wedding. I wanted to kiss you one last time – in private. End it as it began – with a single kiss. Like this.’

  He took her lips and drew her against him. And she felt the answering heat between their bodies. She slid her leg between his and gave herself up to his mouth, his hands, his soft words. Time was beyond measure.

  But one thing needed to be said. ‘You must understand, Mungo. I’m not the right woman for you. I wasn’t cut out to be a wife and mother. If we make love for the very last time, you must promise to take me to the Bussorah Merchant tomorrow.’

  His eyes were sad but he raised his right hand to take the oath. ‘You have the word of a Currency Lad.’

  Just before she surrendered her body and demanded his in return, she whispered with a soft note of finality, ‘If I could have belonged to any one man, it would have been you.’

  Mungo knew he had lost her. But just for tonight he had won. He would make that final kiss last until dawn.

  • • •

  Sun and wind played on Vianna’s skin, whipping her hair around her face as she rode pillion behind Mungo. Her petticoats were teased and tugged by the wind that bared her long legs to the thigh. What did it matter if Sydney Town was shocked? Within hours she would be nothing but the fading legend of the Sydney Town Venus.

  Mungo’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead. He sounded light of heart.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you on board in time. Gave you my word didn’t I?’

  Vianna knew her irritation was irrational. He seems relieved to see the back of me. Yet last night he made love like I was the last woman on the planet and he’d never let me go.

  There were long shadows on the tombstones of the Devonshire Street Burial Ground as they rode past. I know you aren’t there, Daisy. I know you’ve gone home. But I’ll always carry you in my heart, little one.

  She was wary when Mungo took a different route and drew rein in front of the gates of Government House. Without explanation he dismounted and presented a letter to the red-coated soldier on guard.

  Curiosity broke her silence. ‘Why did you stop here?’

  ‘To keep my promise to Sandy. A petition to the British government to grant Logan’s widow a pension.’

  When they arrived at King’s Wharf, a jolly-boat was fast filling with passengers ready to board the Bussorah Merchant.

  Mungo’s face was expressionless but Boadicea picked up his tension. Vianna was the first to break the silence. ‘I didn’t say goodbye to Toby. I left him a note. He and little Fanny will be all right at Mookaboola?’

  ‘As right as rain. They’ve got me. The housekeeper loves kids. Never had any of her own. Felix’s prize cow will give them milk – after Sadie’s weaned the babe. We’ll manage just fine.’

  His smile is so cocksure. He doesn’t give a damn about me.

  He gestured to the rowing boat. ‘What are you waiting for? Severin and that French artist are waiting for you. You’ll enjoy playing them off against each other – like you always do with men, right?’

  Vianna forced herself to apologise. ‘I’m sorry I caused problems between you and Felix.’

  ‘We’re both better off without you.’

  He said the words with a shrug but Vianna noticed he kept looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘Hey, wait for us!’

  Vianna spun around at the sound of Toby’s piping voice, stunned by the sight of two carriages galloping up to halt at the wharf, the L’Estrange carriage and chaise. Felix was mounted on Kaiser.

  ‘What on earth’s going on, Mungo?’

  Toby was racing towards them, his arms waving madly. Felix sprang down from the saddle to help Molly alight. Sandy Gordon escorted Jane Quayle who held the babe in arms. In the background Kentigern L’Estrange and his wife emerged from the second carriage. All were moving steadily towards her like a phalanx.

  ‘So your mother has taken charge of little Fanny.’

  Mungo had an odd look on his face. ‘That isn’t Fanny. It’s Little Gordon.’

  ‘Gordon? So who is Mrs L’Estrange carrying?’

  ‘Little Fanny, of course.’

  ‘You’re taking on three children? All at once!’

  Mungo shrugged. ‘What choice did I have? The Asylum was going to split them up. Albruna and Jane agreed it’s wrong to separate twins.’

  ‘Twins! You lying hound, Mungo. You and Felix had this whole adoption thing planned all along – with help from your mothers!’

  Mungo was philosophical. ‘Just goes to show miracles can happen.’

  Felix whispered a quick aside. ‘Our mothers’ first truce in twenty-five years.’

  Molly looked adoringly at her husband. ‘Felix was just wonderful. He and his parents and Magistrate Kennedy organised the paperwork quick as a wink.’

  Albruna smiled as she placed little Fanny in Vianna’s arms. ‘The least I could do for Mungo, my dear.
’

  Sandy was quick to reassure Vianna. ‘I’ve checked the wee bairns from tip to toe. They are all in top health.’

  His arm was firmly around Jane’s shoulder to bolster her confidence. Jane gave her a piercing stare. ‘I hope I’m wrong about mermaids.’

  Vianna looked at each face in confusion. ‘You were all in league to help Mungo – but don’t you understand? This doesn’t involve me!’

  Mungo’s anger was about to rip, so Felix broke in.

  ‘We’re family, Vianna. The L’Estranges and Quayles might fight like cat and dog but when the chips are down we close ranks.’ He added apologetically, ‘mixed metaphors, but you know what I mean.’

  Mungo rested his hand on Toby’s head. The little boy’s heart was in his eyes as he asked Vianna, ‘Don’t you like us?’

  Oh my God, I’ve hurt him. ‘No, no Toby. You’re all perfect – but I can’t . . .’

  Mungo cut across her. ‘The kids will have a good life with me. What do you care? You claimed you wanted kids. That was just a ploy for sympathy, wasn’t it!’

  Vianna’s voice cracked. ‘That’s cruel – and you know it!’

  She looked from face to face, humiliated by the truth she read in their eyes.

  Somehow they all know. I’m only half a woman.

  The tears she had never shed until now, suddenly poured down her face. Shocked, Felix broke in, ‘Hey Mungo, steady on!’

  ‘Keep your nose out of this, Felix. I can handle this!’

  Mungo spun around to face her. Standing there with his arms stretched wide to encompass his family, the wind whipped his long hair and clothing around his body. Mungo looked like a handsome, desperate scarecrow.

  ‘Face the truth, girl. This is the best offer you ever had. I’m the man who loves you. I come saddled with three great little kids. I offered you a home and family of your own – and you rejected us. Well, piss off back to England. Maybe you’ll have London at your feet. Good luck to you. We’ll do just fine without you. I’ll find myself a woman who has the guts to stick with us – a woman who’ll share my dream. I’ll make it reality. Just watch me!’

  His words lacerated her. Vianna was saved from defending herself when she heard her name being called across the water from the Bussorah Merchant.

  Severin stood at the bow above the ship’s figurehead of a bare-breasted woman. At the stern Jean-Baptiste was waving his hat and calling her name.

  Vianna’s voice carried on the wind. ‘Here I am!’

  Jean-Baptiste cupped his hands to call back, ‘Hurry! We sail on the tide!’

  Severin gestured to a shabbily dressed girl at his side. Her curtsey in Vianna’s direction indicated she was the lady’s maid Severin had promised her.

  Toby tugged at her sleeve, wide-eyed with anxiety. ‘You’ll come back home to us, won’t you, Vianna?’

  Kentigern L’Estrange said with authority, ‘Boomerangs always return, Toby.’

  Vianna clung to her one chance to escape to a new life on the far side of the world – away from Mungo. Nothing will change my mind!

  She read the desperation in Mungo’s eyes. She knew that for whichever woman was fool enough to love him, it would always be thus. The love. Lust. Lies. Laughter. And Mungo’s magic stories. Never to know what tomorrow holds – feast or famine. That’s not going to happen to me!

  She looked at the figures standing stiff and unsmiling as if posed for a family portrait. All eyes were fixed on her – waiting.

  Suddenly, she recognised who they were.

  Vianna pushed baby Fanny back into Mungo’s arms. ‘Here, hold her!

  She picked up her skirts and ran to the water’s edge, cupped her hands and called across the water to the Bussorah Merchant.

  ‘Sorry! I can’t join you. My family needs me!’

  Jean-Baptiste gave a Gallic shrug but called back, ‘Bon chance!’

  Severin was stony-faced. With a swift gesture his finger slit his throat.

  Mungo bundled the babe back into Molly’s arms. He took Vianna’s face between his hands and kissed her hard and long as if no one else in the world existed.

  Breathless, Vianna clung to his arm to steady herself. ‘I’m still not going to marry you, Mungo. I’m a mistress, not a wife.’

  ‘So you said. I can live with that,’ he said. She knew it was a lie.

  • • •

  Vianna looked with misgivings around the barge as Silent Jack steered it through choppy seas towards the northern shore. Mungo held fast to Toby’s shoulder while the boy stroked Boadicea to reassure her. At her feet in the two wicker baskets little Gordon and little Fanny chortled away to each other in their own language.

  Vianna flinched as they passed the Bussorah Merchant being tugged out towards the Heads. Severin was nowhere in sight.

  ‘You realise, Mungo, I only have the clothes I stand up in.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You won’t need any clothes tonight,’ he promised.

  What am I doing here? I must be crazy. My portraits could have made me the toast of London . . . an actress at Drury Lane. I could have made my own fortune – without Severin . . .

  She had a sudden urge to laugh out loud. And what do I have? Three children, a cow, one dress to my name – and Mungo.

  Standing there in the headwind, he turned his head as if he read her thoughts. Their eyes met. She felt a sudden wave of heat and so much love it choked her throat.

  ‘Tell me, Mungo. That story about your plans for glorious Melbourne, the gold rush – and Vianna’s Boutique. That was all just a tall tale about the future, wasn’t it?’

  The sun was shining directly in Vianna’s eyes. Just for a moment she thought she saw a young man standing behind Mungo. His face was shining as he touched his forehead in a gentle salute of farewell to her.

  Of course she was simply blinded by the sun. There was no one else there.

  ‘Well, Mungo – was it true or not?’

  Mungo reached across and brushed a stray lock of Vianna’s hair from her eyes.

  ‘If it is a lie I tell, sweetheart – it was a lie told to me.’

  Author’s notes

  The Lace Balcony is a work of fiction, a marriage between imagination and history played out against the 1827–32 world of the Penal Colony of New South Wales, which then encompassed the penal settlement at Moreton Bay (now renowned for its beauty in the state of Queensland) and as far south as Port Phillip Bay (site of the predicted ‘glorious’ Melbourne’ in the state of Victoria).

  This book could not have been written without the help, expertise and encouragement of a number of medical experts, historians, librarians and archivists, whose input I value greatly.

  Faced with contradictory accounts by respected historians or in newspapers of the era, and given the three-months-plus delay between sailing ships bearing accounts of the Northern Hemisphere’s wars, revolutions, political changes and latest fashions, I chose the opinions my characters would have held in their era. I don’t necessarily agree with them – but then they didn’t have my benefit of historical hindsight.

  Fictional characters: Fanny Byron alias Vianna Francis, the L’Estrange, Quayle and Baker families, William Eden, the Hon. Montague Severin, Dr Sandy Gordon, Jean-Baptiste Bonnard, Major James Dalby and Wanda Stuart.

  I borrowed some names from my family tree. I trust respectable ancestors would have had a sense of humour at the idea of sharing their names with characters of ill-repute. One alias sprang directly from my childhood.

  As a five-year-old living in Melbourne I announced to my startled parents I was not their daughter, I was Vianna Francis of Wonthaggi (a seaside Victorian town I must have heard on a radio newscast). Although the name was a deliberate choice for Fanny’s alias, I remembered after the book was completed that my childhood alter ego had also been a singer.

  While charting her journey from lady’s maid to courtesan I was riveted by biographies of English and French courtesans, the style-setting leaders of the demi-monde who chose the
ir lovers from royalty, aristocracy and political life, and controlled their fertility (few bore children). Their lives were a startling precursor to the independence of modern women – claiming the freedom to manage their own affairs in dramatic contrast with the legal status of respectable women in their era who at marriage relinquished all rights to property, personal wealth and custody of their children.

  Felix L’Estrange’s role in society, Mungo Quayle and Will Eden’s careers as entrepreneurs who ran foul of the law, and The Hon. Montague Severin’s privileged status as a ‘gentleman convict’, were inspired by parallel lives in the early Colony.

  Historical figures: New South Wales Governor, Sir Ralph Darling (and his entourage of Dumaresq and Darling family members including Colonial Secretary Alexander McLeay); Captain John Piper, Mrs Mary Reiby, Sir John Jamieson, theatrical entrepreneur Barnett Levey, W.C. Wentworth (son of convict Dr D’Arcy Wentworth), emancipists Samuel Lyons and Samuel Terry (who became the wealthiest man in the Colony); the bold and brave newspaper editors of The Australian, The Sydney Herald and The Monitor, and English, German and Russian astronomers – all are historical figures.

  Captain Patrick Logan is the book’s historical linchpin. I can trace my fascination for Logan to the first time as a teenager I heard the ballad, Moreton Bay. I was chilled by the brutality of the lyrics in contrast with the haunting beauty of the melody (said to be composed as The Convict’s Lament by convict Francis MacNamara, ‘Frank the Poet’, and set to an Irish ballad).

  The paradox of Logan’s nature intrigued me while researching his roles as renowned explorer, brave soldier, devoted husband and father, yet brutal Commandant and Magistrate whose record for sentencing prisoners to be flogged for slight misdemeanours was excessive even in an era when the cat-o’-nine-tails was accepted punishment. The anonymous diary extracts in the book are based on the historical journal by Acting Superintendent of Convicts at Moreton Bay, Peter Beauclerk Spicer. This records that during an eight-month period in 1828, Logan pronounced 197 sentences ranging from the lowest (72 prisoners sentenced to 25 lashes) to the highest (17 received 100, ten 200 and one prisoner suffered 300 lashes). This astonishing total of 11,100 lashes was administered despite contrary orders from Governor Darling and Sydney authorities, alarmed by Logan’s gratuitous use of ‘the cat’ and the appallingly high death toll of prisoners under his rule. Two convicts deliberately murdered a fellow prisoner with his consent, knowing they would be sent to Sydney Town to stand trial and draw attention to Logan’s brutality before they were hanged.