`Where is Sky?' he asked calmly.
`He is in the house. I had to ... '
`I know,' Ben said softly. 'I have already spoken with Mrs Llewellyn.'
`And where is Silas Moser?'
`He's in there too...'
Ben turned to the captain. `I told you in the launch what I must do at this place, Captain. And I understand you and your marines cannot be seen to be assisting me in any way. All I ask of you, is that you allow no-one to lay a hand on my wife while I am inside this house.'
The captain nodded. `You may be sure of that, Mr Luk.'
Kiri threw her arms tightly around Ben's neck again.
`Ben Luk... what are going to do?'
Ben took Kiri's cheek in the palm of his hand. She held it in both of hers.
`I am going to do what I should have done a long time ago Kiri,' Ben said bitterly. `I am going to end this persecution once and for all.'
Suddenly he pulled away from her and walked the last few yards up to the big house alone. Then, with gun and whip in hand, and a saddlebag slung over his shoulder, he passed through the open doorway into the packed hall of Castlecraig.
At the far end of the hall, the Governor and the Premier of Queensland stood with their ladies, flanked by Lord Clive Waverley and his squadron commanders, receiving a long handpicked line of the colony's upper crust. Catherine, looking beautiful, and smiling radiantly, stood with Charles just off to one side, and announced each of the guests as their turn came to approach the Vice-Regal party.
Ben slammed the great door shut behind him. The crash reverberated around the hall like a cannon-shot. He fired two rounds from his carbine into the air in rapid succession. White plaster fell from the high ceiling of the hall. The smiles on the faces of the guests vanished and the hubbub in the hall died instantly.
All eyes turned to Ben.
The Governor and the Premier looked startled, then angered, by the sudden intrusion of protocol. Lord Clive Waverley and his officers looked on in amazement. Most of the guests looked afraid. Many looked outraged—none more so than Catherine, who stood in stunned disbelief.But no-one dared to move or make a sound.
`I am Ben Luk,' Ben's eyes raked through the crowd as he spoke. `Where is Silas Moser?'
There was no response from the reception line or from the guests lining the walls of the hall. Ben worked the carbine's action sending another round up into the firing position.
`Show yourself Moser,' Ben called out, `I have no wish to harm the innocent.'
A group of people in the reception line began to disperse and move away toward the walls of the hall, leaving one man standing alone in the centre of the floor. It was Silas Moser.
The door behind Ben creaked open and he swung around quickly. Kiri entered the hall with the captain and his marines. When Ben turned back to face the crowd, the marine captain looked to Waverley as if anticipating a signal to intervene. Waverley's jaw tightened, then almost indiscernibly, he shook his head.
`Do not move, Silas Moser,' Ben cautioned. `We have business to conduct here today, and it will be done here and now, before all these people.'
Moser looked afraid but his voice was firm when he spoke. `I have no unfinished business with you, Mr Luk.
And if I did, I certainly would not conduct it in public or at gunpoint.'
Moser turned and began to walk away across the floor. Ben discharged another round into the ceiling. The crowd recoiled in alarm. Silas Moser stopped in his tracks.Ben reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper and brandished it in the air above his head.
`This is your letter of demand, Moser, requiring from me the sum of one thousand, three hundred and eighty- six pounds, four shillings and six pence.' Ben pulled the saddle bag off his shoulder. `And here is more than enough gold in settlement of that debt.'
Ben tossed the saddle-bag onto the floor. It landed heavily, breaking one of the leather straps. Gold nuggets poured onto the floor around Moser's feet.
Moser stood as if frozen to the spot.
`On your knees, Moser,' Ben demanded, `Get down on your knees and take your due.'
When Moser made no move, Ben changed his grip on his weapons, moving his stock-whip to his right hand. He raised it threateningly.
'Pick up the gold, Moser,' Ben demanded again. 'Pick it up and acknowledge the debt is paid.'
Moser stood his ground, not moving a muscle.
Without warning, Ben's lash hissed through the air and laid a crimson stripe across Moser's white, drum-tight face. Still he made no move.
The lash flew again. This time more forcefully.
Moser quickly covered his face with his hands, and then cried out in pain when the leather sliced through them like butter.
Suddenly Moser's defiance was gone, broken by the lash and the public humiliation. He made a whimpering sound and slowly slumped to his knees. His thin, trembling fingers reached out and began to gather up the nuggets on the floor.
`Enough. In God's name, enough.' A loud voice boomed out from the end of the hall. It was the voice of Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, the Governor of Queensland. `You have made your point, sir, whatever it may be. Now leave while you can.I'll have no more of this brutality.'
`I will leave, Your Excellency, ' Ben said firmly, `just as soon as this man gives up a child he took from my property earlier in the day, in exchange for forgiveness of the debt which I have just repaid.'
A loud murmur ran through the guests in the hall. Catherine, flushed and perspiring as a result of the disastrous new course her reception had taken, suddenly turned white as the blood drained from her face.
`How dare you, sir,' the Governor's loud voice became indignant. `The Colony of Queensland has courts of law where disputes may be aired, and in which British justice may be obtained by all. You have no right to bring your grievances in this manner before the good people of this private household.'
`It is the good people of this household who now hold the child under this very roof,' Ben replied angrily. `And it is the good people of this household who have made their fortune trading in the human misery of Melanesian Islanders—by kidnapping them in their thousands, and transporting them to the ports of Queensland to be sold like cattle to the highest bidder.' Ben turned and waved a hand toward Kiri. `One of those islanders was this woman, Your Excellency. She is my wife and the mother of the boy held in this house. Alexander Stonehouse was the father.'
Another loud murmur ran through the guests in the hall.
'My wife was brought here aboard a Stonehouse labor-ship,' Ben continued. 'She was sold into a whorehouse, and held there to be used and abused at will by Alexander Stonehouse, who was another of the good people of this household, until he died while abusing her in her own bed.Perhaps Your Excellency would like to tell her, and the thousands of Kanakas like her, who are held in bondage all over this colony, about your British justice.' Ben worked the action of the carbine again. `But by God, I will take my own justice here today.'
As Ben spoke, Moser was slowly rising to his feet. Ben raised the carbine and leveled it at Moser's heart. 'Now, Moser, where is the boy?'
Moser stood like a whipped pup, hanging his head, and holding onto one strap of the saddlebag which rested on the floor at his feet. Without lifting his eyes he muttered. `Upstairs,' he muttered. 'The boy is upstairs.He...'
ﾁ`What are you saying? What are you saying?' Catherine screamed out hysterically, as wild-eyed and bewildered, she pushed her way through the crowd and hurried across the floor to Silas Moser. `Tell them there is no boy... Tell them, Silas.'
Moser just stood, head bowed, and saying nothing.
'Catherine looked around at the embarrassed faces of the guests. Every eye avoided hers.
'Tell them, Silas,' she shrieked, 'It's lies. All lies. Nothing but filthy lies.Tell them, Silas. Tell them...' Catherine's shrieks gave way to loud uncontrollable sobs.
Charles went to her quickly and took her in his arms.
'No, let the Englishman te
ll them,' a clear voice called out. It was Kiri, her dark eyes blazing, her voice steady and articulate. She brushed past Ben and confronted Charles in the centre of the floor. `You tell all these fine people, Englishman—tell them that it wasn't you who took me with Silas Moser and sold me into Madam Jane's brothel in Toowong all those years ago.'
Charles opened his mouth, but could find no words.
Kiri moved quickly to the side of the hall where a clergyman stood in magnificent black, purple and blue robes, decorated with the heavy trappings of high office.
`And you, Bishop Gower,' Kiri said reproachfully, `Will you, as a man of God, deny that all that has been said here today is true. And will you deny also, that you know my son and I were kidnapped and held prisoner aboard the Stonehouse labor-ship Faithful, bound for the Solomon Islands, and that we were left to drown when the ship was abandoned on the high seas after a storm? Or will you tell these people, Bishop, that an Englishwoman named Vivian Stokes showed you the log of that vessel, given to her by the American sea-captain who came upon the Faithful as she was sinking. And in that log was an entry in the hand of Isaiah Cockburn, the master of the Faithful, which stated Silas Moser and Catherine Stonehouse ordered him to kidnap and transport us.'
'Is all this true, Bishop Gower?'
Every eye turned to the head of the staircase. Clare Stonehouse stood on the landing alone, tight lipped and obviously shaken, but with her head held high.
`I have heard every word since I came from my rooms after I heard the gunshots, Bishop Gower.' Clare began to descend the wide stairs to the hall. `Now tell me, is it true what this man and his wife have said.'
Percival Fairweather quickly climbed the stairs to Clare's side. She took his arm and he led her down the staircase and across the floor to the bishop.
`It's all true, Clare.' Bishop Gower sighed. `I still have the log of the Faithful in my library.'
Clare turned to Silas Moser. `Get out of my sight and get out of my house,' she said calmly. `And don't ever set foot in Stonehouse's again. I intend to accept the offer to purchase made by British Far Eastern. In the interim I shall ask Charles to manage the affairs of the company.'
As Moser shuffled away, Clare turned her attention to Ben and Kiri, and she was surprised when she saw the commander of the Australian Squadron take the rifle from Ben then warmly shake his hand.
With the dangerous confrontation over, the guests began to stream out of the house, some making awkward and clumsy excuses to Clare as they brushed past her in their haste to get outside to their waiting carriages, while Charles and Jenkins tried to organize a dignified departure for the official party and the naval officers.
Clare crossed the hall on Fairweather's arm to Ben, Kiri and Lord Waverley.
`You have a son to be proud of, Mrs Luk,' Clare said tearfully. She was trembling as she spoke. She held out her hand to Kiri. `Come, I will take you to him.I know he will be glad to be going home.' Clare struggled to hold back her tears. `I only hope you and your husband can find in your hearts to forgive a foolish lonely old woman, I never, ever knew....'
Catherine suddenly appeared beside them.
`Mother, you've ruined my life,' she hissed. Her thin lips curled vindictively. `How could you possibly bring Daddy's little black bastard into this house?' She turned a contemptuous eye towards Kiri. `And this, this... whore.'
Before Clare or anyone else had a chance to say anything, Catherine ran across the empty hall, hurried up the staircase, and disappeared from sight.
Clare turned to Fairweather and smiled bravely. `I wonder if you would take Mrs Luk up to my rooms to get her son, Percival,' Clare spoke slowly, desperately trying to control her rage, `I must have a word with Catherine immediately.'
Clare hurried upstairs. Catherine was not in her room. Clare searched for her through all the upstairs rooms, but to no avail. Eventually, she went to the tower apartment where she found Catherine lying on the bed, face down, heaving with choking sobs. Fragments of vases, picture frames, and all manner of objects lay smashed to smithereens all over the floor.
`Get out... get out!' Catherine yelled when she looked up and saw her mother. `Thanks to you I can never show my face anywhere again. My life is over. Nothing you could ever say would make me forgive you.'
`Oh, I don't want your forgiveness,' Clare snapped. `What I want is you out of this house. After what I heard today, I'm ashamed to call you my daughter. I will no longer allow you to live under my roof.'
`Your roof? Catherine screamed. ` Your roof?' She got up off the bed quickly. Her eyes were red and swollen. ` Castlecraig is as much my house as it is yours—more so really. It was my father's house. I am his own flesh and blood. Unlike you, I am Stonehouse by birth, not merely by marriage.'
With loathing in her eyes, Clare watched as Catherine walked across the room to the door leading out to the battlements. Catherine opened it just a little. Outside, carriages clattered noisily over the flagstones far below as the exodus of guests continued. Catherine spun around.
`Oh, why couldn't it have been you who died instead of Daddy? God, how I wish you were dead.'
Clare shook her head slowly. `Not nearly as often as I have wished the same of you young lady. All the years I spent watching Alexander spoil you rotten, and seeing you manipulate him, always cleverly and deceitfully getting your way, always trying to push me further and further out of his life, while all the time I lived in the background, accepting that you were my punishment for being unfaithful to him. But now I will take the punishment no longer. Tomorrow you will leave this house forever.'
`What are you saying?' Catherine asked. `What unfaithfulness?What punishment?'
`You're not a Stonehouse Catherine. You only became one because I was too afraid of losing Alexander, if I were to ever tell him the truth about you. When Alexander was building the Stonehouse Shipping Company he was always away at sea. A young woman can get lonely—sometimes too lonely. The doctor was paid well to say you were born nearly three months premature. Alexander and I were struggling then. We lived alone. There were no servants to gossip. You even obliged by being a small baby. Alexander was away at sea again the night you were born. When he came home he was so grateful you hadn't died. I suppose that's why he always spoiled you so.'
Catherine stood as if she were thunder-struck. It wasn't until Clare had almost left the room that she managed to gasp, `Then... who?'
`Silas Moser,' Clare replied with no trace of empathy, and closed the door firmly behind her.
*
It was dark, and the last of the carriages had long since left Castlecraig, when Jenkins made his evening rounds. It was when he was securing the front doors that he saw the dark shadow out on the courtyard flagstones.
Catherine's broken lifeless body lay directly beneath the battlements of the tower, eyes wide open, staring out into the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Castlecraig still stands high on the hill overlooking the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River. It was purchased by the British Far Eastern Steam Navigation Company when Clare Stonehouse returned to her native Scotland in the summer of 1894. Afterwards, the great limestone house became the official residence of successive Australian general managers of the company.
The first was Charles Worthington-Jones, who became a major shareholder in the company as a result of his wife's death. But after serving only one year in his position, he journeyed to Hampshire in England where he married Vivian Stokes. He never returned to Queensland.
All doors in the colony were closed to Silas Moser after his humiliation at Castlecraig on the first day of August in 1893. He retreated in disgrace to his home in Toowong and became a virtual recluse, and was never seen again beyond the confines of his well-tended gardens.
The labor trade was finally outlawed in Queensland in 1912, twenty-seven years after the findings of the 1885 Royal Commission inquiring into blackbirding had described the practice as 'a terrible indictment of deceit, cruelty, treachery, deliberat
e kidnapping, and cold-blooded murder'.
In 1912, the Commonwealth of Australia, the fledgling government of the new federation of Australian states, decreed that all Melanesians be deported to their islands of origin, including thousands who were born in Australia.
There were few exceptions to the edict, but Kiri, Sky and Christine Luk were among them.Ben Luk and his family, under the untiring care of Mrs Llewellyn, made bricks beside the Brisbane River for decades—as did the generations that followed them.
END David Crookes was born in Southampton, England. After living in Canada for twenty-three years he moved to Queensland, Australia with his wife and children. He has worked in many occupations,as a farm hand,factory worker,lumber-mill worker, costing
surveyor,salesman,contractor,oilfield and construction industry executive and as a small business owner. He now writes fulltime. His travels have taken him to many parts of the world and his particular passion, apart from writing is single-handed ocean sailing.
His novels include: Blackbird -The Light Horseman's Daughter-Someday Soon Children of the Sun-Redcoat-Borderline-Great Spirit Valley
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