Flight of the Eagle

by Peter Watt

  ‘I know,’ Adele Rankin said gently as she led Sarah back to her room and put her back to bed to rest. She could see that Sarah would recover.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  On the desk of the library, between the two women, was a pile of letters neatly tied with a red ribbon.

  ‘These are the letters that you did not receive from my grandson,’ Enid said. ‘And I wonder if you deserve them now.’

  Catherine Fitzgerald was not about to be cowered by the formidable Lady Enid Macintosh and returned her steely gaze. ‘Had I received those letters whilst Patrick was campaigning in the Sudan I might not have had to wait so long to be with him, Lady Macintosh,’ she replied in a cool, calm tone. ‘But as it is, Patrick and I have been fated to be together and your intervention is part of that fate.’

  Enid raised an eyebrow at the young woman sitting across the library from her. She was certainly a stunningly beautiful young woman with her long red tresses and milky pale skin. But it was the eyes that Enid noticed most. They were emerald green and very much like those of her own family. In Catherine's eyes she could see a highly intelligent yet mysterious woman. She is strong, Enid thought. It was no wonder her grandson was completely taken with her.

  ‘The intervention had more to do with Patrick's father,’ she replied as she kept the young woman's gaze. ‘It was a letter he sent from Greece last year that decided my intervention on your behalf, Miss Fitzgerald, not fate.’ Her reference to Michael Duffy almost caused Catherine to lose her composure. So she had a weakness, Enid mused. And that was good, as the game between them was being played for stakes beyond even Catherine's imagination. ‘I dare say that if the contents of Michael Duffy's letter should ever reach my grandson, then he might view his love for you in a different light.’

  Catherine had regained her composure. Michael had been right about Lady Macintosh's absolute ruthlessness in pursuit of maintaining the family's name and fortune. But would Michael have ever mentioned their brief but passionate affair? It was not likely; he was not that kind of man. Lady Macintosh was bluffing and Catherine suddenly realised that she was in a game where the prize was yet to be decided. ‘Would I be permitted to read Mister Duffy's letter?’ she asked, although she already knew the inevitable answer.

  ‘I am afraid the contents of Mister Duffy's letter are private,’ Enid confirmed. ‘I would rather destroy the letter than have any chance of it ever being viewed by Patrick.’

  ‘In that case,’ Catherine countered, ‘I see that I have no other choice than to confess to Patrick my affair with his father and pray that he finds it in his heart to forgive me.’

  For a brief moment Enid looked shocked but quickly gathered herself to parry the cleverly delivered thrust. The young woman was much wiser than she had given her credit for and this in its own right was a good sign. ‘I doubt that will be necessary, Miss Fitzgerald,’ she responded. ‘I have no intentions of informing my grandson of your infidelity.’

  ‘I do not wish to appear rude, Lady Macintosh, but infidelity can only occur in a marriage,’ Catherine interrupted, with just the hint of a winning smile. ‘Patrick and I are yet to be wed, but hopefully we will be upon his return from Africa.’

  The damned girl was good. She reminded Enid of herself at the same age. Yes, she might prove to be Patrick's strong and guiding light in the future. All that was required was a tacit agreement between them that any future grand-daughter-in-law ally herself with her grand vision for the twentieth century. This woman could be the one, she thought, and she regretted less and less following the advice in Michael Duffy's letter to contact Catherine and invite her to stay in Sydney. It had been more of a pleading to help right old wrongs and allow two young people to find a life-time of happiness together. There had been no hint of an affair between the two of them in the letter.

  As such, Enid's invitation had arrived in Greece, and the telegram read by a completely puzzled Catherine. Somehow she had known that it had a connection with the sudden disappearance of Michael from her life. Only now the truth that Patrick had written to her in Ireland was evident. She had also learned that her grandfather had intercepted all Patrick's correspondence. Now it was time to seal the fate that had always intended that the Morrigan marry her Cuchulainn. It was time to win the formidable woman over.

  ‘Lady Macintosh,’ Catherine said softly and with feigned humility, ‘I know that you may not approve of me as a wife for Patrick but I want you to know that fate cruelly divided us and yet has brought us near to finding each other again. But I would leave now if I felt that my presence in your house might cause dissension between you and your grandson. I love Patrick with all my heart and know that beside him and with your help we can make the Macintosh name even greater. I humbly leave that decision to you.’

  ‘Are you a regular attendant of a Protestant church?’ Enid asked.

  ‘I am a member of the Church of Ireland,’ Catherine replied, and was just a little confused when Enid smiled.

  ‘That is just one step above being a Papist,’ she said. ‘And I fear that if you and Patrick have a daughter she may be inclined to perform on the stage like her mother.’ Catherine made as if to protest but Enid cut her short. ‘Oh, never fear, I will not ask you to leave, and I can see that you are confused by my acceptance. It has much to do with righting past wrongs that I must accept some responsibility. I think that you and I both have mutual interests at heart. I am now convinced that my grandson chose wisely.’ She paused and reached for the letters on the desk. ‘You may wish to read these when you move out of your hotel and move into my home to await Patrick's return. I am sure that your presence is the best gift I can give my grandson when he arrives back in the colony.’

  Catherine did not know whether to laugh or cry. Somehow she felt that she had been outwitted by the woman, but was not sure. A gift … the words had possessive overtones but for now that did not matter. She would be reunited with Patrick and knew she would become his wife.

  As she accepted the letters handed to her, Catherine had a fleeting thought that in the future the formidable woman would become at the same time her best friend and worst enemy.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  The wagon was burnt to its axles. Patrick stood staring at the scene of the final stand of his father against the Boer commando. Here and there in the long grass the sun glinted off the expended brass cartridge cases of the Winchester. It all seemed so unreal now that the sun was shining over the sea of waving grass of the African veldt. So peaceful, as if nothing had happened.

  The patrol of ten mounted British soldiers behind him gazed about the plain with curiosity. They had been briefed on the situation at the De Aar outpost by their troop commander, Lieutenant Croft: one man standing alone against a party of heavily armed Dutchmen. The outcome was inevitable considering the time it had taken the Australian to get his message from the Zulu kraal of Chief Mbulazi to the British army outpost in the town.

  ‘It appears that we have arrived too late, Captain Duffy,’ the young lieutenant said sympathetically. ‘I knew your father personally and he was a fine gentleman.’

  Patrick did not answer but stared at the wagon. There were no bodies and very few signs, other than the expended cartridge cases, of a fierce struggle. Nor was there blood on the grass, he noted, as he scanned the area where most of the empty cartridge cases lay. But that was to be expected, considering that it had taken three days to contact and mobilise the British military patrol from the town.

  ‘Naturally we will carry out inquiries,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But these damned mutinous Dutchmen are unlikely to even admit to leaving their farms. The bastards are a surly lot.’

  ‘Possibly, you might make inquiries as to whether or not anyone has come across my father, Mister Croft,’ Patrick replied as he stared at the distant horizon where the sun hovered. ‘I doubt that he is dead.’

  The officer nodded but with little conviction for the captain's wishful thinking. ‘I will do that, sir,’ he replied. ‘But in t
he meantime there is little use hanging around here.’

  Patrick returned to the mount the army had provided him. He swung into the saddle and the lieutenant gave the order to return to De Aar. There was little more he could do than file a report on the incident and hand the matter over to the local police to investigate. Maybe from their informants they would at least determine where the Irishman's body was buried. At least that would be enough to put him to rest. It was impossible for any man, the young English officer considered, no matter how good he was, to escape the determined assault of a Boer commando.

  Tell your mother that you love her … came softly to Patrick's thoughts as he rode on the track back to the town of De Aar. Why had he not asked his father whether he had loved his mother? But he had failed to ask a lot of questions. Maybe he was foolish in refusing to acknowledge his father's inevitable death up against such overwhelming odds. Why was it that when he left he had refused to admit to himself that he would never see his father again? They had not fooled each other with their bravely optimistic talk when they parted. They both knew that they were unlikely ever to meet again in this world of light and shadow. Was it guilt that he had survived and his father had died that refused to let him think of his father as dead? Had he not heard the distant, furious popping of rifles from the direction of the wagon as he floated down the river in the dark? Then the dreadful silence that descended on the veldt.

  His father might be dead but the brief memory of a tall, strong man with one eye persisted. He would always be alive whilst he was remembered, Patrick thought, though not with the sad thoughts of inconsolable grief. He could not really feel this for a man he barely knew. His knowledge of his father had only extended to a brief and traumatic few hours under the guns of the Dutchmen.

  He would return to Sydney via Greece at the first possible opportunity. Catherine lived somewhere and wherever she was he would find her.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Very few people attended the burial of Granville White in Sydney. His body had been transported from Queensland on orders from Fiona. She did not want him to be buried in the same earth as her father and eldest brother. Such a gesture, she felt, would have been an insult to the memory of her father's work in establishing his beloved property which Granville had attempted to dispose of.

  Only a handful of business acquaintances stood in the warm spring sunshine to listen to the minister drone on about the financial achievements of the man in the coffin. There was little else he could think to say about Granville without risking his own soul with fabricated good works.

  Fiona had attended as the dutiful, grieving wife. She stood dressed in black with a veil to keep the buzzing clouds of flies from her face and one or two of the male mourners allowed themselves a sly and most disrespectful admiring glance at her. She was still a fine figure of a woman with a considerable dowry for any man who should be fortunate enough to win her hand.

  But sharing her life with a man was not something Fiona even entertained for a moment. Before the sudden death of her husband she had arranged to travel to Europe to be with Penelope in Germany. There she would also be close to her daughters who had grown into beautiful young women and who revelled in the charming attentions of the young men of the European courts.

  The death of her husband had actually been a godsent opportunity to sever her ties with Sydney. No loose ends reaching back in her life! Nor did she feel guilty for the lack of feeling other than relief that she experienced at the news of Granville's death. For the man had led an evil and destructive life that had probably included the murder of her beloved brother David those many years earlier. The only positive thing she could acknowledge was that he had been a good provider which had allowed her to maintain her elegant lifestyle. And the terms of his will, unaltered from better days between them, returned the third share of the Macintosh companies to her – a third share she had originally transferred to him to protect her son Patrick from Granville's intentions to discredit him.

  Fiona was relieved when the final traditional words were intoned by the minister for the commitment of Granville's body to the earth. The few mourners attending the service paid their respects to her as they returned to their waiting carriages outside the cemetery. She did not linger at the graveside but walked slowly back to her carriage.

  ‘Fiona!’

  The voice that called to her from one of the carriages alongside the cemetery caught her unawares. She ceased walking and stared at her mother's fine carriage, distinguished by the thoroughbred set of greys in harness.

  ‘Mother,’ she answered. It was a word that came to her lips without thinking and Enid stepped from her coach. As she walked over to her, Fiona wondered at her mother's attendance at the funeral. Enid's face did not hold the hardset expression she remembered from their last meeting in the library. Instead, she detected a gentleness she barely remembered. ‘I did not expect to see you here,’ Fiona said when her mother reached her. ‘Considering how I know you felt about Granville.’

  ‘I did not come to pay my respects to that evil man,’ she answered softly. ‘God will be his judge now and not I. I came to see you.’

  ‘Me!’ her daughter replied with bitter disbelief. ‘Why should you wish to see me?’

  ‘Do you think we could walk together, away from the curious stares of the people here?’ Enid said, indicating the few remaining mourners who recognised her. ‘I suspect our meeting will cause tongues to wag.’

  ‘I see no harm in your request,’ Fiona replied.

  The two women walked aimlessly towards the rows of headstones where only the dead could listen to their words. When they had gone a short distance into the cemetery Enid broke the silence between them. ‘Fiona, my daughter, I have done your life a great injustice over the years. I did so out of the sin of pride. A pride that was wrong because it has caused you so much grief. It has caused us both so much pain and I am here now to beg your forgiveness.’

  Fiona stopped and turned to stare into her mother's face. Had she actually reached out to her with an apology for the two decades of alienating bitterness that had existed between them? She gazed into her mother's eyes as if searching for some sign of deceit. But she saw none and found her own emotions tumbling over each other like a leaf caught in the stream of a summer storm. In the rising heat of the early summer that had come to Sydney, she felt as helpless as such a dry leaf. Her mother's expression was that of a tormented woman seeking exorcism for the ghosts that haunted her past. The ghost of a love lost between mother and daughter that lingered even yet.

  ‘You know that I am booked for passage to Germany,’ she replied. ‘And you must know why.’

  ‘I know you will be going to Penelope,’ her mother said quietly. ‘Oh, I cannot say that I understand that which exists between you and your cousin, but I can say what exists in my heart for you. I know I have been a selfish old woman. That I did a terrible wrong in not telling Patrick of your love for him.’ She hesitated in her words and glanced away at a lone gravedigger sweating to prepare a grave. Then she turned to face her daughter and continued. ‘Patrick has telegraphed from South Africa to say that he is returning to Sydney. I expect that he will arrive home after you have taken passage to Europe. I just want you to know that when he returns I intend telling him of your love for him – and of my foolish complicity in concealing that truth from him over the years.’

  ‘You would do that?’ Fiona asked softly. ‘Risk losing his love by telling him the truth?’

  ‘I once met his father,’ Enid said with a humility her daughter had not heard in the many years she had known her. ‘I saw in him a strength and character I have never seen in any other man, except when I look into your son's eyes. The boy is his father's son and, as such, capable of great things. I trust I am right in hoping he can forgive me for the wrong that I have done you both. Had Michael Duffy not been a Papist I think he should have been your husband, despite his lowly station in life.’

  Fiona reached out to take her mothe
r's hands in hers. They felt so fragile and a surge of heartbreaking sympathy for her mother welled up in her tears. For a precious moment she was not the strong and stern woman, capable of ruthless manipulation of a financial empire, but a frail old woman who was her mother.

  ‘You will never know what your words have meant to me, Mama,’ she said with tears spilling down her face. ‘No matter what should occur in our lives from now I will treasure your words, as if they were the most precious things ever said.’

  Fiona suddenly became aware of a strange thing. It was something she had never seen her mother do before. Her mother was weeping!

  ‘I know he will cross the ocean to see you,’ Enid said between sobs. ‘I know my grandson has a need to meet the woman whose blood is his. Just as much as he had a need to meet his father.’

  They held each other in an embrace that swallowed the years of bitterness as if they had never existed, the reconciliation of mother and daughter within sight of Granville's grave.

  Enid gently disengaged herself from the embrace but continued to hold her daughter's hands. ‘Will you dine with me tonight?’

  ‘Yes, Mama, I would like that very much.’

  ‘I have so much to tell you about your son, with so little time before you depart.’

  ‘We have all the time remaining in our lives,’ her daughter gently chided. As much as I long to go to my son I also know in my heart that Patrick will seek me out when the time is right for us both.’

  ‘I wish that were true,’ Enid said as she brushed away her tears with a little cotton handkerchief. ‘But I fear my time in this world is limited. When I am gone Patrick will need the guiding hand of his mother to take our name into the next century.’

  Our name! Fiona thought with a start. The Macintosh name!

  ‘Our name,’ she echoed. ‘Father would have been proud of Patrick. If he only knew him as you have, Mama.’