Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (42 page)

Luke was hardly aware of the sudden silence around him. He was looking down a tunnel with O’Keefe at the other end. ‘Your wife is the finest woman I have ever known,’ he replied quietly. ‘If killing you would help her, I wouldn’t hesitate in doing it now. But she is too fine a woman to have even a goddamned son of a whore like you get her name related to a killin’ in some scurvy pub. No. You get a second chance, O’Keefe.’

‘You don’t,’ O’Keefe replied menacingly from the floor. ‘If I ever hear you have been near her, Tracy, so help me God, I’ll kill you.’

‘You don’t get a third chance, O’Keefe.’ Luke snorted contemptuously with the revolver pointed steadily. ‘If I hear that you have gone anywhere near Kate, I will kill you.’

‘I believe you would,’ O’Keefe replied with a puzzled frown as if finding it hard to come to grips with the fact that there was a man in Kate’s life who was actually prepared to die for her. He knew he would not die for her. For that matter, no woman was worth dying for.

Luke carefully backed out of the hotel with his gun covering the patrons. Not that any of them appeared in the slightest bit interested in helping O’Keefe. Not even the girls who worked for him.

He untethered his horse from the hitching rail and eased himself up into the saddle. He had not gone far when he once again heard the screech of the fiddle belting out an Irish jig. Already the explosive confrontation between pimp and prospector was relegated to curious speculation among the hotel patrons who had witnessed the short but violent incident. The patrons had gone to the pub to drink and to drinking they returned.

Luke rode until he felt he was safely out of O’Keefe’s possible attempts to follow him. Not that he thought that was probable. He remembered Kate’s husband as a man more at home at a card table, or in another woman’s bed, than in the bush.

And as he rode he thought about Kate. He had not seen her in five long years. Maybe it was time he went north to Rockhampton to tell her his feelings. He could now because he had money.

Overhead, the flying foxes flapped silently in a seemingly endless stream as they sought the wild fruits of the forests in the hills around Brisbane Town and Luke began to sing. At first softly, then more loudly.

I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee
.

It was a popular song from his homeland and it had crossed the Pacific with the Californians to the Ballarat goldfields in ’54.

The implication of his momentous decision began to dawn on him and suddenly the night sounds of the Australian bush were as sweet as any sounds on earth. But first he had to visit a man he knew who owned the best thoroughbreds in the colony.

O, Susanna, O don’t you cry for me
. . .

FORTY

T
he room was dark although it was only mid-afternoon. The curtains were drawn for the woman who sat alone in the library of the immense house.

For David, Enid Macintosh had finally let flow the grief which she had withheld for the death of her first son. And now she sat alone, a gaunt and pale reflection of the woman she had once been.

The servants moved about the hallways of the mansion quietly so as not to disturb her, and the letters of condolence from friends and business acquaintances were piled high on the desk in the library where they lay unopened. Nor was Lady Enid accepting visitors to the Macintosh mansion. Strict instructions had been issued to the domestic staff that she was accepting only immediate family.

Throughout the day the grieving woman remained in the library where she took her meals. She only left the darkened library to sleep in her bedroom or attend to calls of nature.

The tragic news that her beloved David had been murdered in the Pacific islands by the savages had been more than any mother should bear in a lifetime. The news of his death had arrived by telegram, relayed over the telegraph line between Brisbane and Sydney. It was followed by a letter from Captain Mort expressing his condolences to the Macintosh family. His letter also contained a rambling and heroic account of how he had tried to fight his way back to recover David’s body. But, alas! To no avail. Such was the ferocity of the natives.

Her dear boy was gone and no more would she see the loving and gentle smile of the man who preferred the pursuit of knowledge to the purchase of power. No more would she hear his laughter nor his gently humorous and sometimes irreverent accounts of life in the hallowed halls of Oxford.

No matter what Captain Mort’s report read, she knew that David had been murdered and why. If only she had insisted that David not take passage on the
Osprey
, he might be alive today, she thought in her grief. Mort may have carried out the execution but Granville had signed the warrant, she was sure. But she knew that to prove such a conspiracy was well beyond her for the moment. Her brooding thoughts were interrupted by Betsy, who had tapped softly on the library door to peer into the dark room.

‘Lady Macintosh,’ she called timidly around the door of the library. ‘Your daughter, Missus White, is here to see you, if you please.’

‘Send Missus White up, Betsy,’ Enid replied in a tired voice. She was not surprised that her estranged daughter was calling on her. The death of her brother would at least warrant one official visit to express formal grief.

When Fiona entered the room, she saw her mother sitting in a large leather chair by the closed drapes and her pale face stood out starkly in the gloom. Fiona sat on a divan at the opposite side of the room, because she did not want to be near her mother.

‘You know, Fiona, that your husband had David murdered,’ Enid said in a flat voice by way of greeting her daughter. ‘He . . . and Captain Mort.’

‘Granville had nothing to do with David’s death, Mother,’ Fiona retorted in a shocked voice at the blunt accusation. ‘You are obviously overwrought by events and have a need to blame someone. You cannot make him a scapegoat for your understandable grief,’ she said.

Her mother sighed heavily. ‘I know your husband was somehow behind David’s death,’ she replied bitterly. ‘As surely as I know my son was murdered.’ She fixed her daughter in the gloom and Fiona returned the hostile glare.

‘You should know all about murder, Mother. Did you not arrange to have my son murdered?’ she hissed with all the venom of the pent-up hate she felt for the stern woman who had ruled her life for so many years. ‘Or was the so well-informed Enid Macintosh ignorant of the nature of baby farms?’ she added savagely.

Enid glared at her daughter. Had they been torn this far apart that each accused the other of murder? It was true that she had given instructions for the baby to be disposed of at a baby farm, but Molly had not only betrayed Fiona, she had also betrayed her. It was only when she was long gone that Molly had sent a letter confessing the actual whereabouts of the baby boy. A letter which she had dictated to her parish priest, who had suggested it was best for Molly’s peace of mind.

Enid had read the letter then destroyed it, as it did not matter to her that Molly had given the baby to the Duffy family to be raised. At least he was out of the way. One way or the other, Molly had satisfied the contract she had made with her and both had got what they wanted. But Enid had let her daughter believe that her baby had been sent to a baby farm and from that day to this Fiona had hated her mother, with no hope of reconciliation, for the perceived infanticide.

‘You could never have married your husband,’ Enid spat back with venom equal to that of her daughter’s, ‘if you had kept the bastard of your lust . . . You were ruined goods.’ Mother and daughter were like two cobras swaying for the fatal strike in the darkened room.

‘There is so much pain when you lose a son, isn’t there, Mother?’ Fiona retaliated.

‘David was also your brother,’ Enid reminded her. ‘Or have you forgotten that, Fiona?’

‘No, Mother,’ Fiona replied as her voice broke and the tears flowed. ‘I have grieved for the dearest and gentlest man I have ever known.’ She wiped her eyes angrily with a small handkerchief, as she had not wanted to show any weakness in front of her mother. ‘But there is nothing more than grief that I can feel for David now,’ Fiona continued. ‘No one can bring him back. Besides, Mother, you taught us to be strong, no matter what. And I am strong, Mother. Stronger than you will ever know. I can thank you for knowing what duty is. Oh, and there is loyalty. You taught us the importance of loyalty. Well, I am loyal . . . to Granville. The Macintosh name will die now that David has gone. There are no other male heirs to inherit the name as all I seem to be able to bear are girls. And you know, I’m glad I have only girls, because the name will die when Father has passed on.’

Enid listened before interjecting quietly, ‘And me, Fiona. You forget that I carry the Macintosh name and the name will be alive as long as I am.’

Fiona gave a short and bitter laugh at the irony.

‘And I now carry the White name,’ she replied. ‘When my daughters come of age they will marry. And I swear that all memory of the Macintosh name will be erased forever. I swear that, Mother. The memory of Angus, you and Father, will be eradicated as if you never existed.’

Enid paled. Her daughter’s talk was akin to sacrilege! ‘If your father had heard what you have just said, he would cut you from his will,’ she said in a trembling and emotionally charged whisper.

‘You can tell him whatever you like,’ Fiona retaliated. ‘But who else is there left to leave the companies to? No, Father will at least leave me the companies as the only remaining person who carries his blood and my husband will ensure that they go to bigger and better things in time. Without him, we are nothing. Father is only interested in Glen View since Angus was killed. And you, despite all your threats, will hope that some day I will see reason and do as you tell me and possibly leave my husband. Well, Mother, you will be hoping until hell freezes over.’

Oh, my daughter, you will never win against me, Enid thought with savage determination. I know a secret that will one day bring you and that man you call a husband down.

‘I think you have said enough, Fiona,’ Enid answered quietly. She had regained control of her emotions and as far as she was concerned the conversation and her daughter’s visit were at an end. ‘I am sure you can make your own way out.’

Fiona stood to leave and there were tears of anger in her eyes. Anger for her mother not seeing the damage she had done over the years.

Fiona swept from the room, past the servants hovering downstairs, to her carriage waiting in the driveway. The coachman helped her through the open door.

‘Miss Penelope White’s house,’ she ordered. The coachman flicked the short whip over the two perfectly matched greys and the coach wheels sprayed stones as they left the house of Fiona’s birth. She did not look back.

Enid watched her daughter depart through the partly drawn curtains of the library. The pain for the loss of her son was also a pain for the loss of her daughter. She had always loved Fiona but she had never been able to tell her so. And now they were bitter enemies, locked in a contest of wills.

She felt her head swim. She had not eaten enough over the days since the arrival of the telegram and she slumped back into the comfort of the big leather chair which David had always sat in whenever he was in the library. How had the family come to this point? Where had it all started?

Vaguely the name Duffy, an obscure Irish family of no social consequence, crept into her conscious thoughts. Had it all started with the death of the Irish teamster on Glen View? Or had the troubles begun with the now long-dead young Irishman who had sired Fiona’s bastard? Had the diabolical twist of fate in the two diverse meetings brought about events that had a common factor of terrible destruction? Duffy and Macintosh! The names were linked forever in blood.

‘Oh David, my beautiful boy, I have killed you,’ Enid cried out as guilt burst like an infection from an angry red cyst. ‘I have killed you, as surely as I have been blind to where my ambition would lead us all.’

She swooned and desperately groped for the long curtains draped on the wall by the window. Betsy heard the thump in the library just as she had heard the terrible cry of anguish from her mistress.

Penelope lay alone on her bed dressed only in a body-clinging silk chemise and she revelled in the wonderful feeling of freedom she had out of the constricting hooped dress that lay in an untidy pile on the floor. Bustles might be all the fashion but they were not a practical step towards female comfort. They were cumbersome and ridiculous in the Australian climate. She wondered idly at the mentality of those who designed such clothes. Why was it that women had to slavishly follow what people in faraway Europe dictated as fashion?

She ran her hand down her flat stomach and along her thighs and her fingers lingered tantalisingly between her legs. She felt a sense of pride in her body, which she knew aroused men with its sensuous curves.

The crunch of gravel in the driveway distracted her from her self-exploration. She had not expected visitors for the afternoon. With a languid sigh she padded across to the window where she drew aside the curtain and was surprised to see her cousin Fiona alight from her coach. Penelope could see that Fiona appeared visibly distressed. Had something happened between Fiona and her despicable brother, Granville? she questioned herself.

‘Fiona! Up here,’ she called down from the bedroom window. ‘Tell the maid you are coming straight up!’

Fiona glanced up to see Penelope framed in the window with her long hair tumbling freely about her bare shoulders, trapping the rays of the late afternoon sun in a golden spray. The curtain at the window fell back and Penelope disappeared from view. Fiona made her greetings at the door and the maid led her up the staircase to her cousin’s bedroom.

When she opened the door to Penelope’s bedroom she was not surprised to see her cousin sitting brushing her hair and wearing only a silk chemise, as Penelope cared little for social inhibitions.

‘You have been to see your mother,’ Penelope said as she let the brush run through her hair. ‘At first I thought my brother might have caused your obvious distress. But looking at you now, I know that only your mother could have caused that much distress to you.’

Fiona leant against the door, as she felt faint from the emotional trauma of the confrontation with her mother in the library.

‘Penny, it was terrible,’ she said in a voice on the verge of sobbing. ‘She is saying that Granville killed David. She is out of her mind with anger and bitterness.’

Penelope rose from her chair and went to Fiona standing by the closed door.

‘Do you think my brother had anything to do with David’s death?’ she asked as she touched Fiona on the cheek gently with her long fingers. Fiona shook her head and tried to look away from her cousin’s full breasts exposed above the chemise. ‘Then you should,’ Penelope said softly and Fiona gasped and stared questioningly into Penelope’s face.