Ghost Gum Valley (27 page)

The corner of Marmaduke's mouth twitched. ‘So which do you prefer?'

‘I believe in God but I'd be a hypocrite to choose one path to Him over the others. I was never christened because my mother was a practising pagan. I'm told her ancestress was burned at the stake for witchcraft.'

Isabel had not intended for all this family history to pour out of her but she was mentally depleted by the events of the morning and by the contract's legal jargon and just wanted the business to be completed.

Marmaduke and Edwin exchanged a long, unblinking look that appeared to be more amused than angry.

Marmaduke broke the silence. ‘In that case I'll take whoever I can get.'

Edwin bowed to Isabel at the door. ‘I am at your service, now or in the future.'

Seated in the carriage, Isabel was surprised when Thomas took the opposite direction to the Princess Alexandrina Hotel.

‘Where are we going now?'

‘You'll see,' Marmaduke said casually.

Isabel recognised the building that seemed an amalgamation of one and two-storey structures that had been expanded to meet the growing demands of the Colony. It was set amidst lovely parkland that married specimen trees from England with native pines and shrubs right down to the harbour foreshores.

‘That's Government House, isn't it? It's exactly like Augustus Earle's lithograph of the painting. So this is the residence of the governor, Sir Richard Bourke?'

Marmaduke sounded disinterested. ‘It's where he conducts his business when in Sydney Town. But like many of his predecessors he prefers the other Government House, a quite elegant building at Parramatta, his summer residence.'

‘I can see a gardener pulling a roller to flatten the gravel carriageway. But where are the kangaroos grazing on the lawn? They looked so charming in the print.'

‘The 'roos might be artistic licence. But if you want to see kangaroos we have a few tame ones at Bloodwood Hall – if the convicts haven't eaten them.'

Isabel gasped in shock. Was he teasing? It was impossible to tell.

She twisted in her seat to catch her last sight of it. ‘What is the interior like?'

‘Why ask me? I'm
persona non grata.
The son of an Emancipist, remember? Only a few of the liberal governors, like Lachlan Macquarie, invited Emancipists to dine at their table.' He turned to look at her with the expression that always unnerved her. ‘But thanks to your illustrious forebears, soldier, I may well be invited inside the place even if only to hold the train of your ballgown.'

Isabel felt the edge to his sardonic laugh.
Soldier,
his nickname for her, his paid mercenary. Thomas had explained nicknames were common in the Colony and they ranged from mateship to denigration.

She now knew that Garnet Gamble's true name was George, his nickname a reference to his being transported for his theft of a garnet ring. She was intrigued by the prospect of meeting the man and learning the reasons for the deep father-and-son enmity.

‘What plans do you have for us tomorrow?'

‘Nothing much of interest to either of us, soldier,' he said casually. ‘Tomorrow is our wedding day.'

Chapter 18

Marmaduke glanced at his pocket watch. It was only midday but already he felt in need of cracking open a bottle of champagne. He congratulated himself that he had every detail of tomorrow's wedding farce under control. Madame Hortense's seamstresses had completed Isabel's wedding gown. He had eliminated the need for three weeks of church banns by obtaining a special marriage licence. A strategically placed cash envelope had ensured its speedy passage. And he had chosen an unusual venue that did not require a church booking.

But disaster struck when a messenger informed him that the priest he had booked had been knocked down by a bolting stallion and was hospitalised with three limbs in plaster. No other church or clergy of any persuasion would be available at such short notice, so Marmaduke hastened back to his best friend's chambers.

Edwin listened patiently to Marmaduke's desperate story and suggested there was a long-shot possibility. James Backhouse. The English Quaker missionary renowned for his humanitarian work was based in Van Diemen's Land but was currently on a short trip to Sydney to look into the future establishment of a Quaker Meeting House.

Edwin immediately began writing a letter.

‘I can't promise he'll agree but this letter will serve as an introduction.' Edwin shrugged. ‘Perhaps as a favour to me...?'

‘Wonderful! Where will I find him?'

Edwin looked over the top of his spectacles. ‘In the death cell.'

Marmaduke hurried back to the hotel and changed into his most conservative grey frockcoat. After stopping off at a hatter's to buy a grey top hat, Marmaduke armed himself with Edwin's letter and the relevant legal documents required for his wedding and tracked down James Backhouse inside the prison, where the minister was inspecting the conditions of condemned prisoners as part of a report for governor Bourke.

Marmaduke soon discovered that the dissenter was a man cut from very different material from most other ‘men of the cloth'. He was dressed in the plainest suit of clothes, the same Quaker grey as his beard. His Northern English accent was studded with thee's and thou's as if he'd stepped straight out of the pages of the King James Bible. He had the gentlest eyes Marmaduke had ever seen in a man.

Marmaduke knew he was treading a very thin line between fudging the truth and an outright pack of lies, but he suddenly felt determined that the wedding would proceed without delay.

The Quaker listened sympathetically to Marmaduke's story of how anxious he was for him to perform a Quaker commitment ceremony for Isabel's sake. How he wanted to take his bride home to meet his father, but could not travel with her unless they were married. Not wanting to sail under false colours, Marmaduke admitted he was not a committed Quaker because there was not yet a Friends Meeting House in the Colony.

He held his breath. Would this be an impediment?

‘We believe that no man has the power to marry a man and woman. Only the Lord has that power. As a minister I act as witness to their vows of commitment. But no doubt thy Quaker friend has instructed thee about our beliefs?'

Marmaduke smiled vaguely.
What Quaker friend? How do I get myself out of this?

‘Brother Edwin Bentleigh?' the minister prompted gently.

‘Oh,
Edwin
, yes of course, he's been a truly great influence on my life.'

Why the hell didn't Edwin tell me he became a Quaker in England?

Marmaduke's hands were sweating but he felt relieved he could genuinely sing Edwin's praises, his tireless work in helping impoverished prisoners and how he had saved many men from the hell of secondary transportation to Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay.

‘Brother Edwin tells me thou hast played a kindly role in assisting prisoners to begin a new life in New Zealand.'

Marmaduke's embarrassment was genuine. No doubt Edwin had failed to mention his assistance came in the form of illegal escape plans.

‘Is thy English bride a Quaker, brother?' James Backhouse asked gently.

Marmaduke chose his words with care, knowing how far he was stretching the truth.

‘Not
yet,
sir, but Isabel says the Friends' beliefs are the closest to her heart. Her heroine is one of your mob, Elizabeth Fry. Isabel's read about all her wonderful work in prison and hospital reform in England.'

James Backhouse gave a silent nod of acknowledgement. Marmaduke pressed on in desperation.

‘Mr Backhouse, this wedding might
look
rushed, but it's been planned for two years. Here's all the paperwork, Isabel's guardian's permission for her to marry me and the legal correspondence showing my father's efforts to make the marriage happen. I know it doesn't quite fit the Friends' rules but I really want to make Isabel happy and it was sheer luck you were passing through Sydney Town on your way back to Van Diemen's Land.'

Marmaduke paused for breath and played his final card. ‘Edwin told me that you and your fellow missionary, George Washington Walker, plan to return to New South Wales to write reports for the governor on the condition of our prisons, Aborigines and lunatic asylums. We'd be most honoured if you'd be our guests at Bloodwood Hall. My father built his own chapel, available for all denominations. You'd be most welcome to use it for your meetings of the Friends.'

James Backhouse's eyes were smiling. ‘I thank thee, brother, for thy kind invitation. It is true this is a most unusual circumstance, but I feel it would be unkind to disappoint thy bride who has travelled so far and waited so long to marry thee. I will explain to thee the Quaker commitment procedure to put thee and thy friends at ease.'

Marmaduke listened with respect. Tomorrow James Backhouse would witness the commitment ceremony. The venue would come as a total surprise to Isabel.

The dawn of his wedding day was ominous. Marmaduke had slept late and the shadows around his eyes were proof of the night before. He dressed in haste and hurried past Isabel's door on his way downstairs to the waiting landau.

‘First drop me off at Mendoza's store, Thomas, then wait for me. We've got a tight schedule to plow through before the main event this afternoon.'

Thomas flicked his whip in the air to give the horses the message.

‘Great weather, sir – Marmaduke. When the sun smiles on a bride on her wedding day it's a good omen.'

‘You surprise me, Thomas. You're a romantic. Did the sun shine for you?'

‘It poured cats and dogs.' Thomas added morosely, ‘I should have seen it was a rotten sign and done a bunk while I had me chance. Only managed to get rid of the shrew when the magistrate transported me here. But he did me a good turn. Being as I was marked down on the convict shipping lists as married, no woman's got a hope of trapping me again!'

‘Good man!'

Marmaduke dismissed omens of any kind but found himself checking the weather. Judged by the sun's position and the bushman's method of calculating time, Marmaduke reckoned it was around ten o'clock. A glance at his pocket watch confirmed it. He was disconcerted to realise that at three o'clock he must front up to tie the knot – a slip-knot designed to set him free from Isabel a year from today.

The landau drew up in front of the window of Mendoza's Jewellery Store and Marmaduke hurried inside to find his grey-bearded partner seated at his workbench.

Marmaduke was annoyed that his voice betrayed his nerves. ‘G'day, Jos. How's business? Can't stop. Just on my way to deliver the rings to my best man. No need to inscribe them if you're too busy.'

Mendoza removed the jeweller's magnifying eye-glass from under a shaggy eyebrow.

‘Would I be too busy for your bride? I thought I must be buried and turned to dust before you got enough sense in your head to take a good wife. Here!'

Marmaduke opened the velvet box and read the inscriptions inside the pair of gold bands artistically engraved with the names Isabel and Marmaduke and the wedding date.

‘You've done a beautiful job – as always, Jos.'

Mendoza gave him a quizzical look. ‘Your father, he is attending your wedding?'

‘Not unless he's got wind of it on the grapevine!' Marmaduke said firmly.

Mendoza rocked his head in disapproval. ‘Oya veh! A son should show his father respect. Garnet Gamble is a good man. When we were shipmates on the
Fortune
every bully on board beat me up because I bear the same name as the champion pugilist Daniel Mendoza of Blessed Memory. Your father was only a lad but he fought them off to protect me. I accept your wish to remain my
silent
partner but I hope one day to pay my respects to your father.'

Marmaduke was discomfited by Garnet's social snobbery about his son being ‘in trade', but even more by the knowledge of Garnet's youthful valour.