The Lace Balcony (50 page)

•  •  •

Mungo decided on a swift change of plans as he headed back to the house.

Last night at Government House was the second time Logan's come back to haunt me. Why the hell won't he leave me alone?

Mungo knew that he could set his watch by Dr Gordon's weekly visits to his father. Today was the day. He headed straight for his father's bedchamber. Kentigern was lying in bed, being cosseted by Jane Quayle and glaring at his physician. ‘There's nothing wrong with me, Doctor!'

‘Aye, you'll get no argument on that score. You're suffering from nothing worse than a bout of foul temper. You're not as young as ye were ten years past. But you're as healthy as a stallion – for your age.'

‘I refuse to be blooded!' Kentigern roared.

‘Calm yourself, man. I refuse to blood
any
of my patients.'

Mungo noticed a curious aspect to the way Sandy addressed Jane, according her the respect he would show a trained nursing sister. ‘Your care of my patient is excellent, Miss Quayle. I suggest you
continue that herbal balm. Two days' bed rest and we'll have the man up on his feet and giving his servants curry.'

Mungo gave a discreet cough from the doorway. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Sir. I was hoping to ride back to town with Dr Gordon when he leaves.'

‘Be off with you, Doctor. You're wasting your time and my money.' He added to soften the complaint, ‘Next time you come here, it'll be as my dinner guest, not my physician. Friday next suit you, Sandy?'

‘Friday it is,' was the reply. With a courteous bow to Jane, he followed Mungo from the room.

‘I'll meet you out the front in two minutes flat,' Mungo said, and hurried to the stables to saddle Boadicea.

While adjusting the stirrups he was startled to find Vianna observing him from the doorway. Her braid had come unravelled like a careless schoolgirl and she looked so uncertain he was annoyed to feel himself weakening. He ignored her.

‘Are you wise to go off riding alone? You haven't healed properly yet.'

‘I come from Viking and Celtic stock. There's no tougher brew than that.' He added pointedly, ‘Don't let me keep you.'

She lingered. ‘I don't want any more misunderstandings between us, Mungo.' That list you gave me to learn to read with the names of all the public houses in Sydney Town. I can read all one hundred and thirty-four of them now.'

‘Good for you,' he said, but continued to saddle Boadicea.

‘I want you to know I'm grateful for all your enquiries about Daisy. But it's my responsibility and time I helped. I plan to visit a few names on the list today.'

He spun around to face her. ‘You'll do no such thing! Some of those places are sleazy shanties! You must be crazy.'

‘I'll take Molly with me,' she said defensively. ‘What harm is there in that?'

‘Plenty. Double trouble. You can't go on foot. You can accompany me in the pony cart on my return. In the meantime, stay fixed. That's an order!'

She followed him out into Little Rockingham Street and looked up at him mounted on Boadicea, shading her eyes from the bright sunlight.

‘Take care of yourself, Mungo.'

Her hand tentatively touched his boot in the stirrup as if she wanted to detain him. Mungo froze at the instant flash of memory.
The horror on Logan's face when Stimson's ghost touched the stirrup on Logan's horse.

He forced himself to shake off the memory, doffed his hat in a hasty gesture and rode off. When he turned the corner to join Sandy at the front of the house, he told himself not to glance back at her. But he did. He saw she was still watching after him, like a child giving him a tentative wave of her hand.

•  •  •

Mungo rode with Sandy in the direction of his surgery at the far end of town.

As they approached the Devonshire Street Cemetery, Sandy grew serious.

‘I must make the time to check on Logan's tombstone. See that the stonemason has spelt the details correctly. I'm the only one left to see that his widow's wishes are carried out. I've been busy lobbying Darling and the Colonial Office on Letitia's behalf, continuing the pressure to see her granted a pension. Darling appears to have done the right thing – but those autocratic bastards at Whitehall and their damned regulations are another matter entirely. It's just not British justice to allow officers' widows and children to suffer hardship this way.'

Mungo pushed aside his hatred of Logan. He could never forget that Letitia Logan was Sandy's kin.

‘I wish you luck. But look how they treated a hero like Horatio Nelson. In his dying words after the Battle of Trafalgar he willed to the British Nation the care of his mistress, Lady Hamilton and their baby daughter. And what happened?'

‘Aye, they never awarded poor Emma a single penny. So I am none too optimistic they'll do justice by Letitia's bairns.'

They were now level with the gates of the cemetery. Several black-veiled widows stood like sentinels by the vaults and tombstones of their dead.

Mungo averted his eyes from the direction of Logan's grave. His words were blurted out before he could prevent them. ‘Have you ever seen him, Sandy?'

‘The Governor? Aye, face to face when presenting my case.'

‘No. I meant Logan. You being a Celt and all, I thought maybe you could see things – other people can't . . . ?'

‘So he's come to you, has he?' Sandy said evenly. ‘I suspected if he appeared to anyone, it might be you, lad.'

Mungo was startled. ‘Why
me
?'

‘At Moreton Bay ye swore you'd seen dead men walking. I believe ye. Not many lies can get past me, Mungo.'

‘In that case – could we talk some time?'

‘No time like the present. I have an hour before my patients arrive. Come to my surgery. We'll have a cup of tea – with a dash of whisky to help it go down.'

Mungo agreed.
Who can I trust? No one but Sandy. The die is cast.

He felt both relieved and anxious as he stretched out his legs, seated in the easy chair in the ante-room of the surgery. No medical paraphernalia in sight, the room felt more like a private sitting room, with bottlebrush flowers to counteract the faint smell of eucalyptus oil.

Sandy decided to forgo making tea and the whisky glasses were charged.

‘We both know I was half crazy at Moreton Bay. I talked to dead men, some of them prisoners who died under the lash.'

‘Aye, Logan being both Commandant and self-appointed Magistrate, British justice had little hope of being done.'

‘It didn't end at Moreton Bay. I thought when I returned here I'd leave all their ghosts behind me. Fool that I was I thought I was sane again.'

‘I'd put money on the fact you're as sane as I am, lad,' Sandy said firmly.

‘Then why do I keep seeing Logan? I can live with my nightmares but Logan's come to me twice – just as real as you are. The first time in dress uniform before the altar at St James's. I hadn't known that was where his funeral was held.'

‘I'm not one to discount apparitions, though I've not encountered one myself.'

‘Last night I saw Logan again – in the grounds of Government House. At first I thought he was some officer trying to petition the Governor. Darling walked past him as if he wasn't there.' Mungo gave an uneasy laugh. ‘But Logan was damned real to me. So why is he haunting me?'

‘Perhaps his spirit won't rest until justice is done by his wife and bairns. Say what you will of the man, Mungo, he was never self-serving. Some officers line their pockets with government money. Logan was scrupulous to the last penny. He died heavily in debt, having borrowed money to buy his Captaincy to marry Letitia.'

‘Then why isn't Logan haunting
you?
You're his kin. Sandy, I can't keep it bottled up any longer. The truth is I suspect it's for a much darker reason. You remember our last sortie in the bush at Moreton Bay, when you sent me off alone in search of new species of butterflies for Mrs Logan's collection?'

Sandy nodded but held his silence.

Mungo knew there was no turning back. His fear out in the open, he felt vulnerable, stripped naked. ‘Those two days I went missing. I returned exhausted, dirty, my clothes in shreds, and stained with blood. My memory was wiped clean of where I'd been and what'd I'd seen. The only clue I had was a jar with a rare butterfly.'

Sandy listened as if he had all the time in the world. His eyes remained kindly but watched him intently.

‘On my return I slept around the clock. Did I say anything in my sleep?'

Sandy shook his head. ‘No chance. My physic knocked you out.'

‘The following day we got the news Logan was missing. We joined the search party. Found Logan's dead horse in the creek – his body nearby.'

‘Aye, I remember every detail. I'm nae likely to forget.'

Mungo felt his throat constrict. ‘Maybe you're the last person on the face of the earth should hear this, Sandy. But if I don't tell you, I'm betraying our friendship.'

‘Whatever you say between these walls remains here.'

Mungo began to sweat. ‘I know I sound like a kid. But the
nightmares are dead real. I can't escape them. Last night I woke up yelling in my sleep, “You bastard. You deserve what's coming to you, Logan.”

‘I went back to sleep – back into the nightmare. This time when I woke I was alone, standing in the middle of the room. I was holding a knife.
This
knife.'

Mungo's hand shook as he withdrew the knife from the sheath at his belt. The doctor wordlessly drank his whisky, his eyes fixed on the knife.

Mungo hastily returned it to the sheath. ‘Sandy, what if it wasn't the blacks who killed Logan? What if Logan's haunting me – because I'm his murderer?'

The silence seemed to stretch beyond time. Mungo felt he was standing on the edge of a chasm between life and death – fearful of both.

Sandy refilled their glasses. Mungo noticed his slightly stronger accent.

‘Mungo, I dinna believe you have it in ye to kill a man in cold blood. But God knows you and hundreds of other felons had good reason to want the man dead.'

‘What if my nightmares aren't dreams but actual memories that I'm afraid to remember? If I confess I killed him, I'll be hanged. If I remain silent some innocent blacks may be strung up for a crime that I committed.'

‘British justice may be less than perfect but there's no law that can hang a man on the evidence of his nightmares. No man, black or white, has been accused of his murder. I doubt any man will ever stand trial. Why not let history be the judge?'

‘Where does that leave me?'

‘I can give you some physic that will help you sleep, Mungo. Can you live with your nightmares? Allow the Lord to deliver justice in His own good time?'

‘God works for others. Not for me. I have to know the truth. I hated Logan enough to want to see the man rot in hell. But was I the one who sent him there?'

‘Sorry to disappoint you, lad. There's no guarantee Logan's in hell – if there is such a place. I like to think God is the one true judge
fit to weigh the good and bad in every one of us human sods. The paradox of Logan is that by his rigid standards, his military training – and he
was
a brave man in battle – he believed he
was
the law in Moreton Bay. Although he rarely tempered it with mercy, from what I witnessed.'

Sandy leaned forward and gripped Mungo's shoulder.

‘Logan's dead and buried. I'm a physician. My one concern is treating the living. I consider you my friend and I admire your courage. I suggest you live with the remote possibility ye killed him. Wait and see if any true memories of those lost two days come back to you. Time enough then to explore a method that might well set ye free from your baseless fears.'

Mungo drained his glass. ‘How's that?'

‘I have long been interested in the work of Mesmer and later physicians, in the area of restoring repressed memories. I have no great experience of hypnosis. But if you agree, we can but try it.'

‘What would happen to me? Laudanum?'

‘Absolutely no physic of any kind. It involves putting you into a kind of sleep, a trance-state – free to relive the events of those missing two days. Describe what ye saw, what ye did. But I would nae advise it until you have some spontaneous recall of memory. So bide your time, lad.'

Mungo felt his palms sweating. ‘Time's running out, Sandy.'

‘Your young lady's a problem?'

‘No longer mine,' Mungo said too quickly. ‘But I intend to honour my promise to find her lost sister.'

‘Knowing you, you'll work like a black tracker to find the bairn.'

Mungo's mind veered to Vianna. ‘I owe her. She kept me alive at Moreton Bay. But that's a closed book. She's better off with Felix. Anyway, what woman wants a murderer to father her kids?'

He noticed that Sandy averted his eyes for a moment.

‘You're jumping the gun, lad. Dreams and evidence obtained under hypnosis would be laughed out of court. Your memory may return spontaneously – to reveal that the most lethal thing ye did was capture a butterfly!'

‘So why was I holding this knife in my hand when I returned to camp?'

‘I dinna know, lad. But there's one thing I'd swear on a stack of Bibles. You may well be capable of killing a man who was a tyrant in your eyes. But no way in the world would you kill a
horse
.'

Sandy reached for the whisky bottle. ‘Care for a quick nip before ye face the day ahead, lad?'

Mungo needed no second invitation.

Vianna watched Mungo riding Boadicea until he turned the corner headed in the direction of the front of Rockingham Hall. She felt crushed that her tentative attempt to restore peace between them had failed, but her mood swiftly channelled into anger and then trepidation. She was aware time was running out – she must break the bonds that tied her to her old life.