Ghost Gum Valley (2 page)

Marmaduke pushed his way closer to her carriage when it stalled in the crowd. He focused on her face and the impressive pale bosom decked with jewels, startled by the exotic, dark beauty of the woman who was a legendary singer and courtesan.

Josepha St John. The Irish-American Nightingale! It must have cost Barnett Levey an arm and a leg to entice her to the Colony. At last I'll see her perform in the flesh. And with a bit of luck – perhaps even closer.

Marmaduke had never been in the right country at the right time to see her perform. But he had greatly admired the controversial portrait of her as the goddess Juno, a painting refused by London's National Gallery due to the notoriety of its subject. Amongst a group of wealthy London gentlemen who had flocked to the artist's Hampstead studio, he had been transfixed by her lush beauty but the painting was not for sale. The artist was clearly enamoured by the diva who, it was said, had rejected him as a lover in favour of a British duke and a European prince warring for her attention. Marmaduke had seen the diva scandalously portrayed with them both in a series of ribald caricatures that sold like wildfire on the streets of London.

Marmaduke managed to catch the diva's eye as she alighted from the landau and entered the Royal Hotel.

We'll meet again, sweet lady – either on stage or off.

When Marmaduke tried to flag down a hansom cab to take him to Edwin's legal chambers, he was blocked by a flash new carriage from which the liveried driver jumped down and accosted him.

‘You'd be Mr Marmaduke Gamble, right? I been trying to catch up with you. I'm your driver, sir, instructed to take you anywhere you require, night or day.'

‘Instructed? There's some mistake. I didn't order any carriage.'

‘No mistake, sir, if you're my master Garnet Gamble's son. This here carriage is your father's 'omecoming gift.'

Marmaduke barely managed to contain his rage. Since the day he had galloped away from Bloodwood Hall, shattered by his bride's rejection and threatening never to return, he had refused to accept the allowance from his father's bank. He had lived solely by his own resources, his travels sustained by his share of the quarterly profits from Mendoza's store.

Garnet's assumption that I'd accept this ridiculously expensive carriage is typical of Father's ego – a calculated gesture of manipulation. Nothing has changed!

Marmaduke was on the point of rejecting the gift when he noted the driver's anxiety.

‘I'm Thomas, begging your pardon. If you don't accept it, Mr Gamble, I'll be out of a job.'

No point in cutting off my nose to spite my face. I'm in a dead
hurry to have Mingaletta's deeds changed to my name. When that's legally square, I'll return this carriage to Garnet. His bloody hide, to think he can buy my forgiveness with a carriage and pair.

Despite his anger, Marmaduke could not help admiring the streamlined bodywork, luxurious upholstery and the beautifully matched pair of greys.

‘Any flashier and it'd put Governor Bourke's vice-regal carriage to shame.'

Thomas looked anxious. ‘The team ain't to your taste, sir?'

The man's gold-braided livery, knee-breeches, buckled shoes, tricorn hat, everything was in mint condition – except his face. Judging by the beaten cast of features that looked prematurely aged, Marmaduke decided he was an old lag who'd done it hard.

‘The coach is more my father's taste but I congratulate whoever chose the horses.'

Thomas's mouth split in a grin of surprise. ‘I thank ye, sir. The master said you was an excellent judge of horseflesh, so I was to choose the best team money could buy.'

Marmaduke was surprised by this rare, second-hand compliment from Garnet, but he was more curious about the coachman's background.

‘Your face seems familiar. Your full name?'

‘Thomas Thomas, sir.' He hesitated. ‘I come out on the
Fortune.'

Marmaduke knew this was the convict ship that had transported Garnet to the colony in 1806, so he tried to put the man at ease. ‘Ah, yes, my father's shipmate. He said you tended his wounds after the ship's master had him flogged.'

The coachman looked startled when Marmaduke offered his handshake.

‘No doubt you'll hear tales about my lurid past, Thomas. Most of them are true. But I'm not one of those Emancipists' sons who ape the English and are ashamed of the men who helped build this Colony. I'm native born and proud of it.'

With a sense of resignation that he had been out-manoeuvred by Garnet, Marmaduke took a seat in the carriage.

‘But despite Father's orders, Thomas. Be a good fellow and save the “sirs” for him. I prefer Marmaduke.'

‘Yes, sir – Marmaduke!' Thomas leapt up onto the driver's seat and took the team at a smart trot across town to where most of Sydney Town's legal fraternity had their chambers.

The carriage swung around the elegant square in front of the fashionable church of St James, designed by Governor Macquarie's once-favoured architect, Francis Greenway, the Emancipist who had been granted a pardon in the same year as Garnet. Greenway had fallen from grace during the subsequent Governor's regime and was now living in obscurity.

A typical Colonial pattern. The faster they rise, the harder they fall.

Edwin Bentleigh's legal chambers were two flights up in a convict-brick building that had been built early in the Colony's history.

Ushered into the inner office Marmaduke enveloped his friend in an extravagant hug, causing the diffident Englishman to turn pink with embarrassment.

‘Edwin, how glad I am to see you. Time and again I wished you'd been sharing my adventures, mate!'

Edwin mumbled his pleasure at his friend's return and ordered tea but Marmaduke was struck by the barrister's careworn appearance, an even more marked contrast between his powerful courtroom persona and his reticent private face. Edwin's looks were ordinary, being thin of frame, gaunt of face with a sandy, receding hairline. But in the courtroom galvanised by oratory and his belief in the innocence of his client he was transformed into a figure of Shakespearean grandeur, fighting to uphold the spirit of British law.

Marmaduke knew he defended many convicts trapped in that nebulous zone between guilt and innocence and unable to pay him, yet Edwin fought for them with the same zeal he would bring to the defence of his sovereign, King William IV.

Outside the court Edwin shrank into a shy, perennial bachelor resigned to living under the thumb of his widowed mother in a Wool-loomooloo Hill cottage. Marmaduke had never seen him in the social company of a woman and wasn't sure whether this was due to lack of courage or inclination.

They laughed and jousted for half an hour, filling in the gaps between four years of letters, Edwin quietly enjoying Marmaduke's stories of his lost innocence abroad.

‘You appear to have created quite a stir at Home, old chap.'

‘Odd thing is, mate, I had to go to the Old World to feel really accepted as a native-born Australian. But back on my own home turf being a Gamble is the kiss of death. Garnet may be the second richest man in the Colony, able to buy and sell the Quality in business, but you know as well as I do, no Emancipist's son can ever break the class barrier or marry into their mob. This penal colony's invented more levels of society in forty-five years than Europe chalked up in ten centuries.'

Slipping into legal questioning mode, Edwin made seemingly casual enquiries about whether Marmaduke had returned to the Colony ‘heart whole'.

‘While you were away were you never tempted to ask for a lady's hand in marriage?'

‘Hey, what do you take me for – a prize idiot?' Marmaduke said lightly. ‘Once was more than enough. Being left high and dry at the altar at nineteen was the only chance any female will ever get to trap me in matrimony.'

Edwin said quietly, ‘The bride wasn't worth a broken heart, old chap. I hope you realise that now.'

‘I had a lucky escape,' Marmaduke said a shade too quickly. ‘You were the best possible best man, mate. But there's no chance we'll front up for a repeat performance.'

‘I trust you haven't foresworn the fair sex,' Edwin asked anxiously.

‘Not a snowflake's chance in hell. I'm no misogynist. But maybe because I'm totally discreet I enjoy my fair share of “women of a certain age” as the gallant French say. Virgins are safe around me, mate. Voltaire said it in a nutshell. “It's one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.” I'll second that!'

‘But you are young, Marmaduke, one day you may want to have children.'

Marmaduke sliced his hand through the air with the finality of a guillotine.

‘Hold your horses, Edwin. You're so anxious to see me settled you'd marry me off to a bearded lady in a circus. Let me make it
clear. There's no way I'm ever going to breed, Edwin. The Gamble dynasty began with Garnet and
ends with me
!'

Clearly troubled, Edwin gave a sigh of resignation best suited to an old man.

Marmaduke added casually, ‘While we're on the subject, has Father's mental imbalance increased in my absence?'

‘He's still in control of his empire, axing financial advisors in his customary style. He's expended large sums of money – with no known objective.'

Marmaduke shrugged and turned to the subject uppermost on his mind. ‘Let's get down to brass tacks. Taking rightful possession of Mother's land means more to me than inheriting a gold mountain. I'll honour the promise I made when I was sixteen.' The words said in anguish on his mother's deathbed were now quoted coolly. ‘“I give you my solemn oath, Mother. I shall reclaim your land, become master of Mingaletta. And make Garnet Gamble pay for everything he did to you”.'

Marmaduke's stare was intended as a silent challenge.

Edwin returned his gaze. ‘I see. Miranda Gamble's Will did more than bequeath you her property. She left you a legacy of revenge against your father.'

Marmaduke shrugged. ‘I've discovered that hatred is an emotion easier to sustain than love. Where do I sign my name to the transfer deeds, mate?'

‘I regret to say, Marmaduke, it's not quite as simple as that. It is only in recent weeks that your father agreed to hand over your Mother's last Will and Testament. There is an irregularity. Please read it then we shall discuss ways to deal with it.'

The document was written on parchment yellowed with age. Marmaduke read it quickly the first time then evaluated every word on the second reading.

‘It's as clear as a bell. I am to take possession of Mingaletta on my marriage or my twenty-fifth birthday, whichever comes first. Mother left several items of family jewellery and a sum of money to my childhood nanny, Queenie, whom she describes here as “my faithful friend and servant whom I love as my sister”. She left nothing to Garnet, except Amaru, her sulphur-crested cockatoo that drove father nuts.
Mother's insult reminds me of Shakespeare's Will – leaving to his estranged wife, Anne Hathaway, his second-best bed.'

Marmaduke tossed the document on the desk. ‘So what's the problem, mate?'

Edwin sighed. ‘This Will isn't
signed,
Marmaduke.'

‘But I heard her dictate it. We'll demand Garnet hand over the original copy.'

‘This
is
the original. It was immediately written up by Garnet's manager and returned within the hour for her signature. But your mother had died minutes earlier.'

Marmaduke's voice rose in frustration. ‘But I was
there.
So was Garnet – he was drunk at the time – in one of his manic moods. He'd brought an Irish fiddler to the house to play jolly Irish jigs to cheer up my dying mother, for God's sake. But Garnet's had ten years to remember that night and honour Mother's wishes!'

‘I regret I must act as the legal servant to two masters, Marmaduke. But you can count on me as your friend. Your father insists on sticking to the letter of the law. Challenge him in court if you will but I believe every barrister in Sydney will give you the same advice. Garnet Gamble has the law firmly on his side.'

‘You mean the bastard never intends to hand over Mother's estate to me?'

‘He will...on condition you return to Bloodwood Hall to sign the deeds face to face.'

‘Face to face? I'd rather kill the conniving bastard!'

Edwin thumped the table in an uncharacteristic display of aggression. ‘Don't be a damned fool, Marmaduke. You are his only son and heir. You stand to inherit his whole empire – given you don't lose your head and sign your own death warrant!'

‘If I killed Garnet Gamble in a duel half of Sydney would applaud me!'

‘I managed to get you off one murder charge for killing a man in a duel because you were a wet-nosed youth of sixteen. But don't count on me or the law to prevent you swinging on Green the Finisher's rope if you murder your own father!'

Marmaduke quietly digested those words until his mood turned to icy calm.

‘I thought I'd felt the full gamut of hatred. For my father and that villain I killed. But I see now there's no end to Garnet's manipulation and no end to my hatred.'

Edwin ran his fingers through his hair and seemed to have aged in the past hour. Marmaduke felt a sting of pity for his friend and hastily assumed a cavalier manner.

‘Forgive me for shooting the messenger, mate. I can see it's a helluva role playing lawyer to both father and son. Don't worry. I'll return to Bloodwood tomorrow and play Garnet at his own game. I'll
talk
him into his grave.'

Marmaduke grabbed Edwin's hat and jammed it on his friend's head.

‘That's enough real-life
sturm und drang
for one night. You and I are off to enjoy the French chef's cuisine at the Princess Alexandrina. My treat to celebrate my homecoming. And after we've drunk our fill of the new Hunter Valley wines I've read about, We're off to the box I've taken at the Theatre Royal. No arguments. They're giving us scenes from
Hamlet
tonight.'