Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1

by Peter Watt

  Fiona stared disbelievingly at her mother. How could she know so much about Michael? And the answer came almost immediately.

  ‘Penelope confirmed that this Michael Duffy you have been seeing is the son of a man called Patrick Duffy. David was told by your father that this Patrick Duffy stopped a police officer from performing his duty in apprehending the black murderer of your brother. The irony of the whole situation is that the blacks repaid the misguided man’s gesture by spearing him and his black companion to death. It was certainly God’s will that the man died for the sin he had brought on himself.’

  Fiona gave Penelope a withering and accusing look that said: How could you betray the confidence that I had placed in you? And why? It was the ‘why’ that puzzled her most.

  Penelope looked away with the guilt of her betrayal etched in her face. Any sorrow Fiona might have been able to muster for Angus was soon replaced with bitterness towards all her family.

  ‘I find it hard to believe that Michael’s father would help a murderer, Mother,’ Fiona spat defiantly. She could still feel Michael as if he were inside her. It did not seem possible such a man could be born of the man her mother spoke of. ‘There must be more to the events than you have told me.’

  ‘Lieutenant Mort of the Native Mounted Police confirmed to David the events I speak of, Fiona. It is not likely that a Queen’s man such as Mister Mort would tell lies. No, the only person who has been involved in lies here has been you, sneaking away like some common whore to see your Papist Irishman.’ She said this venomously with all the hatred she could muster for her daughter’s unforgivable betrayal. A daughter who had knowingly stepped outside her assigned station in life. Her duty was to her family first – and last.

  Granville watched with great interest. With Angus dead, David was the next in line to inherit the family wealth. He regretted the unexpected change in the line of succession, as dealing with Angus was far easier than dealing with the sanctimonious David Macintosh. Oxford learning had put in his head strange and dangerous ideas about social reform and equality for all.

  Then a not so disturbing thought occurred to Granville as he brooded on the implications of the eldest heir’s untimely demise. If something happened to David, Fiona would be the next apparent heir to the family business ventures. But David was young and healthy and it was unlikely he would die of natural causes for many years. Only an unnatural cause of death could change his luck. Granville tried to shake the troubling thought from his head. But as an ambitious and ruthless man, he could not completely discount the murder of his cousin. Under the right circumstances . . . He turned his attention to Fiona’s predicament.

  Tears of rage and frustration had welled in Fiona’s eyes as she was left speechless by her mother’s invective.

  ‘I think I should be taking Miss Macintosh out of here, Missus Macintosh.’ The controlled anger in Molly O’Rourke’s voice cut across the room. ‘I think Fiona has had enough suffering for one day,’ she said as she went to Fiona and placed her arms around the young woman’s trembling shoulders. Molly O’Rourke, servant, and Enid Macintosh, mistress of the house, locked eyes.

  ‘I did not call on your services, Miss O’Rourke,’ Enid said imperiously. ‘So I would ask that you leave the room immediately. This is family business and has nothing to do with you.’

  Molly stood her ground and refused to budge. She had held Fiona as a baby in her arms and had travelled to England with her to care for her in the Whites’ home there. No, she was not going to let anyone hurt her Fiona. She was not leaving the library unless it was with her baby. ‘We will, Missus Macintosh,’ Molly said firmly as she gently guided Fiona to the door.

  ‘Damned old Irish witch,’ Granville swore when she was gone. ‘You should throw her out on the streets where she deserves to be.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ David said unexpectedly. ‘No one dismisses Molly while I’m alive. That woman has given everything for Fiona and me over the years, cousin, and no one dismisses her.’

  Granville glared at him then looked to Enid for support. ‘I am sure the decision to dismiss the services of that Irish hag is in your mother’s hands, David, not yours,’ he said smugly.

  Enid felt her son’s eyes on her. It was not a bullying stare, but one of a request. ‘As much as I detest the woman, David is right,’ she replied quietly. ‘With all her faults, her greatest virtue is that of loyalty to Fiona and David. No one will be dismissing her.’

  Loyalty, David thought. More like love. But that was not a term used in the Macintosh house. Words like position and duty described their family relationships and David could not remember ever hearing his mother use the word ‘love’.

  Another example of Macintosh solidarity, Granville thought bitterly when he observed Enid bow to her son’s request. Another example of David flexing his authority just as Penelope had predicted. He was becoming a dangerous man.

  ‘If I am not required any longer, I think I will leave, Aunt Enid,’ Penelope said, as there were matters to be discussed and an attempt at reconciliation between herself and her cousin.

  ‘I would hope you would go to Fiona and convince her that seeing that Irish boy has no future,’ Enid said to her niece. ‘I would rather you do it that way, than have me take stronger measures to prevent her seeing him.’

  ‘I will try,’ Penelope replied. ‘But I fear she thinks she is in love with the man.’

  ‘She only thinks she is in love with him,’ Enid snorted. ‘Remind her of who she is and her duty to the family. Remind her that the Irish rendering of love is a house full of dirty squalling children and the eternal stink of cabbage, while the husband spends all his time drinking himself into a stupor. Just remind her of that.’

  Penelope nodded. ‘I am sure your description of life with the Duffy boy will change her mind,’ she replied facetiously then turned her back and, with a rustle of her dress, swished from the library.

  Granville tried to make light of his sister’s parting sarcasm. ‘One would think Penelope was in sympathy with Fiona. Possibly have some sort of liking for the Irish lout herself.’

  Neither David nor his mother could see the humour in his attempt to excuse Penelope’s retort. From what Enid had heard about Michael Duffy, she would not be surprised to find that her niece indeed had a ‘liking’ for the Irishman, as she was well aware of Penelope’s scandalous sexual escapades and she blamed her daughter’s infatuation with the Irishman partly on her niece. But the matter of Penelope’s morally degenerate influence on Fiona was something that could wait for the moment, as the events concerning the existence of Tom Duffy were of more pressing concern. She turned her attention to her son.

  ‘You mentioned that this Patrick Duffy had a son with him at the time he was speared?’ she queried.

  ‘Yes . . . and no. It appears that the son was with the dray when the natives speared his father and their darkie. At the time Lieutenant Mort found the deserted bullock team, one of his native troopers told him of the existence of the second white man, who we now know was Tom Duffy. According to Mort, Duffy would not last long out in the bush without assistance.’

  The Duffy name was like an Irish curse on them. First in Queensland where Patrick Duffy had knowingly taken sides with the murderer of her son, and now in Sydney, where one of his sons had . . . she shuddered . . . she could not even entertain the thought that her daughter might have slept with the man. And now she had learnt of yet another of the man’s sons in Queensland. In all probability the son was dead and her husband had nothing to fear from him. But there was just that tiny irrational fear . . .

  ‘Biddy, I am going to need your help with Michael,’ Frank Duffy called to his wife from the kitchen.

  She dropped the well-worn rosary beads on her bed and quickly threw a shawl over her long nightdress as she hurried down the staircase to the kitchen. She had recognised both anger and concern in her husband’s urgent entreaty for her to join him and her own concern was heightened by the muffled sound of Co
nstable Farrell’s booming voice. She knew the voice well as the huge Irish policeman was a frequent visitor to the back door of the Erin Hotel for the occasional drink while he was on his beat.

  ‘Dear God. Not Michael,’ she muttered as she hurried to the kitchen where her husband met her with a scowl on his face fit to frighten the devil.

  ‘What has happened to Michael?’ she gasped, throwing her hands to her face. ‘Is he hurt?’ she asked anxiously with a maternal concern.

  ‘Worse than that . . . he’s drunk. And he didn’t make it to work today when I most needed him to help Max in the cellar. Constable Farrell has been kind enough to bring him home when a night in the lock-up might have been a better idea.’

  She glanced at Michael who was sitting slumped over the heavy slab kitchen table. ‘Dear God! What has happened to you, Michael?’ She gently lifted his bloodied head from the table. His clothes were torn, a sweet and sickly smell of alcoholic spirits wafted from him and it was apparent that he had been in a brawl.

  ‘Sorry, Aunt Bridget,’ he mumbled through split lips. ‘Got into a bit of a fight.’

  ‘Get a bowl of hot water . . . Not too hot, Francis, and a couple of clean cloths,’ she ordered. This was not the first time she had cleaned Michael’s wounds after a fight. But then the injuries were not as severe as now, and it was obvious that he had not fared well in whatever donnybrook he had been involved in.

  ‘I wouldn’t be feeling too sorry for him if I were you, Biddy,’ Frank grumbled irritably as he filled an enamel basin with warm water. ‘It’s obvious that the man has decided to get drunk and get into a fight rather than do a day’s work. Never thought he would be one for taking to strong liquor. Never has in the past.’

  ‘Then he must have had a good reason to be this way, Francis,’ she snapped as she carefully prised away a section of blood-matted hair from Michael’s scalp to reveal a deep cut.

  ‘I will be all right. It’s nothing,’ Michael said apologetically as he gave her thin and fragile hand a gentle squeeze.

  ‘It is more than nothing to be sure, Michael,’ she countered softly. ‘You have a serious cut on your head and heaven knows where else you are hurt. We will clean you up first and see if we have need of fetching Doctor Hughes.’

  ‘I will live, Aunt Bridget,’ he protested. ‘I just let my guard down.’

  ‘What happened to get you into this state?’ she asked.

  He knew she meant more than his physical injuries, and he could not look at her when he whispered hoarsely, ‘Da is dead. So is Old Billy. Tom is missing. Probably dead.’

  ‘God almighty!’ Frank swore and almost dropped the enamel dish of warm water he had filled. ‘How do you know this?’ he asked and Michael focused on his uncle’s face through a haze of rum and pain.

  ‘I know, Uncle Frank,’ he replied. ‘It would be hard for me to tell you how I know but believe me, I believe what I know to be true. Da and Old Billy were speared by the blacks on the Tambo trip. I don’t know all the details, except that it happened in November. I don’t know much about Tom’s fate. I suppose that is why we have heard nothing from them all these weeks.’

  Frank collapsed into a chair and his face crumpled like wet paper as he stared past the battered face of his nephew. Pat dead! And Tom missing! The sudden and unexplainable lack of letters that had arrived regularly from the colony of Queensland now had a logical explanation. But not this terrible explanation. It was almost impossible to comprehend that a man like his brother, who had once defied the might of the British Empire both in Ireland and the colony of Victoria, could have fallen to the primitive spears of the wild black men of Queensland. Poor Katie! She was somewhere north and expecting to be reunited with a father and brother.

  ‘Dear God, Katie will be on her own!’ Bridget said, reflecting her husband’s unspoken thoughts. She ignored the fact that her niece was now a married woman as she had little faith in Kevin O’Keefe’s ability to be strong for his wife. O’Keefe was a city man, a womaniser, whom Katie had the misguided idea she could change with the words of the marriage vows. Bridget had never liked him but she had never told Kate of her doubts concerning the man she had married. She knew that any words against him would have only alienated her niece.

  ‘You will have to go north and find your sister, Michael,’ Bridget said firmly as she brought her tears under control. ‘She will need you now more than ever.’

  ‘I have thought about that, Aunt Bridget,’ he replied. ‘And I think we have to let O’Keefe look after her now. Kevin is her husband and it is up to him to look after Katie . . . not us.’

  ‘You would desert your sister at her moment of need?’ she said with a flash of anger.

  ‘Aunt Biddy, Kate is a lot stronger than all the men I know,’ Michael protested. ‘She might only be sixteen, but she has the iron of both the Duffys and the Fitzgeralds. If anything . . . and knowing my sister . . . she will cope.’

  Bridget listened to her nephew’s words. The strength was in the Duffy blood. There were those people who lived their lives frightened of change, or only dreamed about adventure. And there were those who did not know the former existed. To the latter, change and daring were the normal essence of life itself. There was a name for such people – pioneers! Kate was now a pioneer on a wild frontier. But she was also pregnant, and a long way from her family, with a man of doubtful qualities.

  ‘Yes . . . yes. I suppose I am like a mother who does not want to admit my little girl is a woman,’ she said softly as she reflected on her niece’s inner strengths. She had always been a mother to both Patrick’s children and although Kate had many of the characteristics of Elizabeth, her natural mother, she had also acquired many strong qualities from her aunt.

  ‘Katie will no doubt learn about Da and Tom,’ Michael said. ‘She will know what to do when she finds out.’

  ‘Do you think she will come home when she finds out?’ Frank asked.

  Michael shook his head. ‘No. Somehow I think she will stay in Queensland and build her hotel . . . with O’Keefe’s help.’

  Francis sighed. ‘She has no reason to remain up there with Pat and Tom gone.’

  But he had to admit there was a perceptiveness in Michael’s observations. Patrick had been so different in his outlook on life. Not for his restless brother the city life, but the untrodden vastness of this new land and its far horizons. It was Kate who had also inherited the restless spirit of the Duffys to go beyond the paling fences and seek the places where only men normally went in search of adventure.

  Only Michael was a little different to the rest of his family as he was very much like his poor dead mother, Elizabeth, with her creative spirit. For Elizabeth, it had been a sweet and beautiful voice that could create images sad and joyful in men’s minds with her songs.

  Bridget finished cleaning the wounds and washed away the blood from his face, and impulsively she wrapped her arms around him and held him to her ample bosom as if he were a little boy.

  Michael was emotionally drained. It had not taken much for the three soldiers to provoke him at the Sovereign Hotel. Just a derogatory comment about the lack of intelligence of the Irish race. But the brawl with the soldiers had dissipated his anger and grief, and all three soldiers had required treatment at the military infirmary as a result of their confrontation with the young Irishman. It was fortunate for him that an Irish police officer had been called to intervene in the brawl. And more fortunate still was the fact that the same policeman happened to be Constable Farrell who knew the Duffy family well.

  When Bridget was satisfied that Michael did not require the services of Doctor Hughes, she prepared a cup of tea for him. He thanked her and she could see that her nephew wished to be alone. She indicated to her husband that they should leave him for the moment.

  Michael stared with vacant eyes and confused thoughts at the corners of the kitchen. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours. So much had changed his life forever.

  The wooden keg rattled
down the chute and slammed into the cellar floor with a thud. Michael strained and, with a grunt, hauled it sideways away from the chute. He was stripped to the waist and his muscled body bore the imprints of bruises from the brawl two days earlier. Sweat streaked his face, even though the cellar was the coolest place in the hotel.

  ‘Ve vill haf a drink, my friend,’ Max said, as he straightened to ease his aching back. He too was stripped to the waist. ‘Ve vill try this ale.’

  Michael wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt and sat down next to the German who produced two enamel mugs. He spiked a keg and tipped it carefully to pour the brown liquid. Michael sniffed at his cup and wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant smell.

  ‘Not really something to slake a thirst,’ he said of the odious beverage. Max took a mouthful and spat it on the dusty cellar floor.

  ‘You are right, mein friend. This country vill never haf a goot beer.’ The local beer was brewed with dubious astringent substitutes to the hops normally used in beer-making. It was no wonder that the imported English beers remained popular despite their higher price. ‘In Hamburg, vee haf the best beer, ja,’ he added wistfully as he recollected the cold lagers with their creamy and frothy heads flowing over the lips of huge drinking steins. ‘Vot you need in this country is such a beer. Vot you need is a goot Bavarian brewer to teach you how to make the beer.’ Both men stared down at their mugs and simultaneously poured the contents on the floor.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of bottles of English beer,’ Michael said as he reached behind a wooden crate.

  ‘Horse piss, your Englisher beer,’ Max said as Michael began to pass him the brown bottle. He shrugged, making a movement as if to replace the bottle. But Max grabbed it from him.

  ‘But I vill force myself to drink it,’ he said, with feigned reluctance.

  Michael grinned mischievously. ‘I think you shouldn’t drink it, Max. You are getting fatter every day. Soon even I will be able to beat you in a couple of rounds,’ he said cheekily.