by Peter Watt
Michael had noticed the tense exchange between the two. There was something deep and unresolved between them, he thought.
‘It has some merit,’ Granville conceded reluctantly.
‘I am sorry, Mister Duffy,’ Penelope apologised. ‘I have not introduced my brother Granville to you . . . Granville, this is Mister Michael Duffy.’ Neither man offered to shake hands as it was tacitly agreed that each disliked the other.
‘Do you work in town, Mister Duffy?’ Penelope asked. ‘From your manners I might presume you are employed as a clerk with a solicitor . . . or similar.’
Michael laughed softly at her interpretation of his social status. He had noticed that she was the more assertive of the two women and had an air of self-assurance about her to the point of being brazen.
‘Very flattering, Miss White . . . but no,’ he replied politely. ‘However, my cousin, Daniel, is undertaking his articles with a firm in town. I work for my uncle at the Erin Hotel in Redfern.’
‘Well, I would never have guessed you were employed in that kind of work, Mister Duffy,’ she commented. ‘Not with your obvious artistic talent.’
‘That kind of work, Miss White, enjoys a lot of patronage in Sydney,’ he replied in a manner which left her in no doubt that he had been insulted by her demeaning statement. ‘I would daresay that some of Sydney’s finest imbibe from time to time. As a matter of fact, they might even get falling down drunk,’ he added with a facetious smile. Penelope blushed. He was so damned sure of himself.
‘I did not mean to infer your work was not important.’ The words tumbled from her mouth. ‘And I humbly apologise if you took offence.’
Michael smiled. ‘I know what you meant, Miss White,’ he replied. ‘But I accept your apology.’
Penelope felt a surge of fury. He had made her do something she had never done before. He, a mere working-class man, had made her apologise. Some day, Mister Duffy, I am going to force you to submit to my will. And I don’t care how long it takes.
‘I think I should return to Daniel, my cousin,’ he said, as he noted with some satisfaction that he had caused Penelope to flush with anger. Ah, but the gentry could lose their composure as easily as the working class. ‘I hope I may be fortunate enough to meet both you ladies again in the near future,’ he added, catching a frank and admiring glance from Fiona.
‘Sydney is a rather large town,’ Penelope retorted coolly, still smarting from her apology. ‘It is not likely we would see you again.’
Michael stared her directly in the eyes before answering. ‘Two of its most beautiful ladies stand out in the largest of crowds,’ he said, holding her angry stare.
‘Sir, you are being impudent,’ Granville flared. ‘You should take back what you have just said. Immediately. And apologise to the ladies for your impudence.’
The Irishman burst into a deep laugh that rolled over them. ‘The truth need never be retracted,’ he said as he turned to stare at Granville. But there was no sign of merriment in the eyes to accompany the laughter. Just a deadly cold greyness that chilled Granville. Fiona unwittingly broke the tension between the two men.
‘I must give you back this drawing, Mister Duffy,’ she said, as she pushed the paper towards him. ‘It is too beautiful for me to keep.’
‘The portrait is yours, Miss Macintosh,’ he countered gently. ‘You can do whatever you like with it . . . except return it to me.’ She was aware that he had pressed a note into her hand as palms had touched and instinctively knew that the passing of the paper was a secret between them.
‘Thank you, Mister Duffy,’ she said coyly as she wrapped her fingers around the note. ‘I will always keep this wonderful gift to remember my meeting with the man who saved me from the thunder . . . If not the rain.’
He flashed her a knowing smile as he bade good afternoon, then turned on his heel to make his way to the rear of the ferry.
He was smiling as happily as a schoolboy who had been given the day off lessons as he pushed his way through the mass of wet bodies to reach Daniel.
‘I gather you made a further acquaintance with your young lady, boyo?’ Daniel asked his grinning cousin.
‘That I did, Danny boy . . . that I did,’ Michael replied with a sigh. Daniel frowned as he turned to stare at the pounding rain on the harbour waters. Nothing good could come of such an impossible affair, he thought sadly.
Both men watched in silence as the southern foreshore of Sydney harbour slid past the port side of the ferry and the paddlewheels churned the grey sea into a white wake trailing behind them. Michael was lost in thoughts of the anticipated rendezvous he had proposed in his note to Fiona and his wiser cousin brooded on the stupidity of even contemplating any form of courtship with the young woman. Sure and Michael might be better educated by the good Jesuit fathers of Saint Ignatius School than any gentleman in the colony, but he lacked the considerable means to support such a quest for the young lady’s hand. He was a young man rich in dreams – but poor in money. The Duffy estate was of moderate comfort but far from the unimaginable wealth of those whose class the beautiful woman appeared to be from. No, Michael was in for a big fall, when he confronted the fact that there could be no future between himself and Miss Fiona Macintosh.
The rain eased as the Phantom approached the clippers and sailing ships moored to the wharves busy with the commerce of the colony’s trade. And, as the ferry churned past the residences of the colonial elite dominating the heights east of the Quay, Michael stared over the water at the most imposing mansion of all – the Macintosh mansion. A magnificent home with beautiful gardens that spilled down to the harbour’s edge rivalling the homes of those of the other colonial aristocracy, the Wentworths of Vaucluse and the Macleays of Elizabeth Bay.
Fiona also gazed up at her home but she did not see the beautiful gardens or imposing structure of the house. She only saw a lonely place of restrictive confinement and little laughter. The house was not her home. It was the house of Enid Macintosh – her mother. A house where her mother ruled over the Macintosh financial empire as an iron fist inside a velvet glove, as she ruled the house of servants and her own children in the same manner. If only Father had chosen to remain in Sydney and not go to Queensland to manage Glen View personally, she thought wistfully. But he loved the land more than he loved the company of his family.
She sighed and made a silent wish that her oldest brother Angus would soon take over the management of Glen View. Then her father might return to Sydney to spend more time with his family.
A cold breeze whipped up a salty spray, splashing Fiona. She shivered and in the chill was an echo of something strange and dreadful. She suddenly felt faint and swooned. Penelope noticed and inquired if she was ill but Fiona gave a reassuring answer that her corsets were just a little tight. The restrictive corsets had a bad habit of cutting the blood supply causing young ladies to faint on occasion. The explanation seemed to satisfy her cousin’s concern for her welfare.
EIGHT
All was not well at the Erin Hotel.
Michael and Daniel exchanged questioning glances as they hung their rain-soaked coats on wooden pegs on the back of the battered kitchen door. The loud and booming voice of Francis Duffy echoed down the narrow hallway from the hotel’s dining room and his angry tirade was occasionally interrupted by the softer and more reasonable tones of Bridget, his wife.
Max Braun, the cellarman, slopped at gravy on a tin plate with a chunk of fresh bread as he sat at the kitchen table. He grunted a welcome to the two young men as he wiped away remnants of spilt gravy from his chin with the back of a gnarled hand and was seemingly oblivious to the angry scene taking place in the dining room.
The big German was an imposing figure. A former sailor from Hamburg, he was Michael’s height and somewhere in the huge frame was muscle that had long disappeared behind bulging fat as an inevitable result of Bridget’s excellent and copious meals. His head, which was a mishmash of scar tissue, seemed to be connected to his shoulders, su
ch was the thickness of his bull-like neck.
‘What’s happening, Uncle Max?’ Michael asked, as he stood in front of the wood stove to warm his hands. ‘Why is Uncle Frank angry?’ Steam rose off his shirt, filling the kitchen which was only just big enough to hold a table and six chairs crammed uncomfortably close to the stove.
‘Schlechte. Neuigkeiten,’ Max answered in his native tongue then switched to English although he knew Michael spoke German well enough. ‘Best you stay away from Mister Duffy.’ He gave a loud belch before scraping his chair away from the table and heaving his big frame to his feet. ‘Die kleine Katie ist geschwangert,’ he added coarsely to describe Michael’s sister’s delicate condition.
Michael felt his face drain of blood. Katie pregnant! She was only sixteen . . . and unmarried! ‘Who . . . who is the father, Max?’ he asked and blurted, ‘It’s that bastard O’Keefe.’
Max nodded.
‘Ya. I vill break his neck . . . the no goot svinehund.’
Michael knew that his threat was not idle. The big German was prepared to kill the defiler of his beloved Katie as he had a special fondness for both Michael and Kathleen Duffy. To him they were his adopted children. A special link with their father, the big Irishman Patrick Duffy, who had saved his life that terrible day of the Eureka massacre. And over the years both Michael and Katie had grown to adopt him as their ‘uncle’.
‘You won’t have to break his neck, Uncle Max,’ Michael said quietly as he clenched his fists. ‘I will. But just enough so that he will still be well enough to marry Katie.’
Max nodded. ‘She is your sister. Und it is vight you do this . . . For her honour, mein friend.’
Despite Max’s warning to steer clear of Francis Duffy in his anger, Michael and Daniel entered the lion’s den. The dining room was not a large or elaborate room. The few tables in the small room were pushed close together to economise space. The first impression that struck the visitor to the dining room was the pleasant odour of wax that wafted off the highly polished floor and big cedar sideboard adorned with neat rows of cruet sets. Expensive Irish linen and the cutlery for the morning breakfast covered the table tops. The Erin Hotel enjoyed a reputation for some of the finest accommodation money could buy for travellers visiting Sydney. And part of the attraction was the high quality of the meals served in the dining room and in the main bar.
A large candelabra on the centre table flickered as the door was opened and the two young men stepped as unobtrusively as possible into the room. The table with the candelabra was central to the three people already gathered in the room, each of whose faces reflected different expressions of emotion caught in the candles’ soft light. Bridget Duffy sat showing concern while her husband’s face expressed a black anger and Katie’s look was that of defiance, as she stood behind her aunt, gripping the back of Bridget’s chair. Kate had a strong face that would mature from girlish pretty to womanly beautiful as the years passed in her life. It was a face framed by lustrous and wavy dark hair that spilled over her shoulders almost to her waist. Like Michael, she had expressive grey eyes capable of speaking her thoughts. Although Michael had never thought of her as an attractive girl – as brothers are prone not to do – he knew other men found her striking.
A short silence fell as the three around the table turned to view the two young men. ‘Max told us the news,’ Michael said.
‘Did he tell you who the father is?’ Francis Duffy thundered. ‘Did Max tell you about Kevin O’Keefe being the father?’
‘I guessed as much, Uncle Frank,’ Michael answered calmly. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘Oh! And you are all so sure Kevin O’Keefe is the father of my child,’ Kate flared. The men were carrying on as if she were not even in the room with them. ‘I don’t remember anyone asking me who the father is. It might be the Chinese market gardener down the road for all you men know.’
Her furious outburst caused all the men in the room to blanch. With horror all three men stared at her and she smiled wickedly now that she had their attention. ‘I will put your minds at rest. Kevin is the father of the child that I carry.’
But this was not a consolation to Francis Duffy as the Chinese market gardener who delivered vegetables to the hotel might be a preferred husband to the son of convict parents. The fact that O’Keefe’s parents had been Irish convicts, even if they were of the True Faith, did not compensate for their lowly social status in the colony. There was an ingrained snobbery among free-born colonialists and immigrants about such matters. It was Frank Duffy who raised the painful and socially embarrassing issue.
‘Katie, you know O’Keefe is of convict stock,’ he said. ‘How could you allow yourself to get . . . umm . . . with child to him. You could have had the choice of marrying any young Irishman in Sydney. Any young man from a good freeborn family.’
Her bitter laugh echoed in the near empty dining room. ‘Have you ever thought that possibly I might love Kevin O’Keefe himself? That I care little for what his parents were. Not that it should matter, anyway. Some of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens in the colony were once convicts, Uncle Francis. Does anyone hold that against them? What if the British had caught my father in Ireland for his activities? What if they had transported him as a convict? Would that make me or Michael any different?’
Francis coughed behind his hand. Yes, Patrick had come close to being caught on many occasions. What Kate said was true. But it was hard for the Irish publican to shake the bias against those of convict blood. And yet many of the good customers of the Erin were themselves men who could show the scars of the cat on their backs and tell stories of lashings that took so much meat that the guards’ dogs had feasted on the bloody flesh at the base of the cruel triangle. They were good men all the same.
He felt his anger dissolving when he stared across at his wife holding Kate’s hand protectively in hers. He knew full well that his wife had sided with her niece from the beginning and there was little a man could do against one woman’s opinion, let alone two. ‘Is O’Keefe going to marry you?’ he asked gruffly.
Kate could see from her uncle’s demeanour that he had conceded defeat but she also knew that he would have to bluster for the family’s honour in lieu of her father, absent somewhere on the Queensland frontier. It was the way of men, to fume and bluster on matters that had no real concern to them, other than a stupid male thing about honour.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered quietly. ‘He does not know about my condition.’
‘Jesus, Mary and . . . !’ Michael checked his blasphemous outburst.
‘Michael!’
‘Ah, sorry, Aunt Bridget,’ he apologised meekly before continuing. ‘O’Keefe got you this way and he doesn’t know! Katie, do you know what sort of man O’Keefe is? Do you really know?’
‘I have heard talk, Michael. But I also know Kevin is a good man who just needs a woman to love and look after him. He will change when we are wed,’ she answered without rancour at her brother’s well-intentioned if not tactful question.
Oh yes, she had heard the stories about Kevin O’Keefe, but they were only stories spread by jealous women he had scorned.
Kevin had come to work for her Uncle Frank a year earlier. She vividly remembered the first time he had stood framed in the doorway of the kitchen with his cap in his hand and his flashing eyes, and the way his slow warm smile settled on her. She thought she would faint. Kate knew from that instant that he was the man born to love her as she would him and as the months went by she found herself finding excuses to be around him at the hotel. He could make her laugh with his easy charm and make her feel special with his gentle words. In many ways Kevin reminded her of Michael: tough, gentle and handsome.
Soon she could do nothing but daydream about being in his arms. She had vague swirling thoughts about love that began to focus on the power of his body. And then one day she found herself in the cellar of the hotel alone with Kevin. He was stripped to the waist hauling the heavy wooden kegs an
d was not aware she stood watching him. She remembered so well the way the muscles rippled in his shoulders and arms as he strained to lift the kegs. He turned and his eyes met hers – he wanted her and it was only a reflection of her own desire. They moved closer together and stood facing each other until with gentle, lulling words he began to undress her. His power was mesmerising. She let him do what he wanted, for she wanted his touch.
The pleasure was all that she could have imagined and when it was over Kevin confessed his love for her. The visits to the cellar became frequent and their lovemaking, snatched amongst the big wooden kegs, exquisite. She had felt their love sealed forever in the sharing of their bodies, and now even more so by God’s gift they had created together.
Michael’s father had warned him that Kate was her mother’s daughter – headstrong and stubborn. Michael also knew that his mother had defied all the rules of her society to elope with a wild young Catholic rebel and bear him two sons and a daughter.
Patrick Duffy and Elizabeth Fitzgerald had been an unlikely pair; she, the daughter of a Protestant landowner who was descended from French nobility and he, the son of an educated Catholic Irishman who reared his sons on the bitter and bloody ideas of rebellion. Was not history repeating itself with Kate’s decision to marry a man not socially acceptable to the Duffy clan?
But Patrick Duffy had been a man with a noble cause, whereas O’Keefe was flawed. His only cause was the pursuit of women and gambling. It was not hard to like O’Keefe who had natural charm and a quick wit. He was also a man who could use his fists which Michael respected about him. He might have a reputation as a womaniser but he was also a man’s man.
The regular patrons of the Erin had often discussed the possibility of an organised bare-knuckle bout between the two men. They were matched in size and weight and both had reputations as the best bare-knuckle fighters around Sydney’s Irish areas.