Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (45 page)

‘But I presume you have ridden her?’ Kate queried as she continued to stroke the horse’s broad forehead. Lady nuzzled Kate’s straw hat and they all laughed when the horse yanked it off her head. It snorted irritably as it attempted to chew the straw hat on the ground. Kate dropped the bridle and the horse was content to remain with the hat.

‘Yeah. Well, Lady and I came to an agreement on the track up to Rockhampton,’ the American drawled with a wry twinkle in his eyes. ‘I told her I was the boss, but I promised her I would treat her right. And she figured the arrangement would do.’ It had not been that easy, but Luke was a superb horseman and he had soon learnt to control her while leading his own mare.

Kate turned her attention to Luke, who was standing beside Solomon beaming with pleasure for his friend’s extravagant gift to her. It had been over four years since she had last seen the American and he was still the same tall and ruggedly good-looking man she remembered from the trek west. Except now his hair and beard had a touch of grey and in his face were the signs of a fever not long gone. She could see that he moved his left arm with stiffer movements than his right.

‘Lady was meant for you, Kate,’ Luke said gently. ‘You both have the same first name.’ Kate felt his eyes on her filled with a tenderness that belied the bushman’s tough way of life and she did not want to look into his gentle eyes. She knew that she would cry for the vulnerable sensitivity of the tall man who she knew, without any lingering doubts, loved her. She was hardly aware of his softly spoken words when he said, ‘I remember you once gave me not one horse, but three. Let’s say it is returning a favour . . . or something like that.’

‘Accept Lady, Kate,’ Judith urged gently. ‘Luke has travelled a long way to give her to you.’

Kate fought back the tears welling in her eyes. She wanted to do something appropriate as a way of thanking Luke but she was still stunned by his unexpected appearance in her life.

She stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek and she was startled by his sudden grasp of her arms as he held her and kissed her boldly on the lips. The kiss was strong and gentle and Kate felt confused. She was another man’s woman now. Surely his kiss had come too late for them both . . .

Little Deborah watched puzzled and asked with childish curiosity, ‘What is Uncle Luke doing to Aunt Kate?’

Judith smiled mysteriously and took her daughter’s hand. ‘Some day I will tell you,’ she said as she led the little girl away and Solomon wisely followed his wife into the store.

Kate broke from Luke’s embrace and stood back with an agonised expression on her face.

‘Oh, why did you stay away for so long, Luke?’ she said in her confusion. ‘Time has changed so many things for you and me. I . . .’ She could not find words to express her turbulent feelings and tears welled as she ran sobbing towards the store leaving Luke bewildered and alone.

‘Time has changed so many things . . .’ He felt miserable and foolish. But maybe that was it! Too many years had passed between them. After all, he had nothing to offer a woman, except a head full of dreams!

Alone that night in her bed, Kate did not sleep well. When she had last seen the American she had seen him through the eyes of a girl and even then he had been an attractive man. Now that she was able to see him through the eyes of a mature woman she knew she was still attracted to him.

But Hugh Darlington had come into her life. He was younger, financially well off, and socially acceptable in the best circles of frontier life. Luke on the other hand was older, always penniless and had no social standing, except with the tough frontiersmen to whom he had become something of a legend. She found herself comparing the two men as she tossed restlessly in her bed.

Luke was also brave, gentle and generous and for years he had always held of a piece of her heart that she never dared admit to herself.

Every practical female instinct told her that the handsome and suave solicitor was the obvious choice between the two men, if she was to make a choice! But something kept Luke in her thoughts. It was that something that she could not give a name to that made the choice far from inevitable in Hugh Darlington’s favour. If only Luke was the kind of man who could stay in one place there might be a hope for them. But the American was a man who she knew had a mistress. And that mistress had a name. Gold.

‘Mister Darlington, I believe you are the solicitor acting for Missus Kate O’Keefe,’ the tall man queried when Hugh ushered him into his office. The man was obviously an American from his accent, Hugh thought.

‘That is correct, Mister . . . ah . . . Tracy,’ he said as he sat down on a chair behind the desk which was cleared of all paper leaving only a silver ink stand and ivory pen. Luke eased himself into a chair and placed his hat on his lap.

‘Solomon Cohen told me that Missus O’Keefe has her business registered through your office,’ he said. ‘And he told me she needs money for a matter of some importance to her. As her lawyer I figured you might be able to help me.’

Hugh entwined his fingers on the desk in front of him as was his habit when talking to clients and Luke could not help but notice how soft the man looked in comparison to the men he knew along the lonely tracks of Queensland’s frontier.

The lawyer’s pale skin was unblemished by the sun and nor were there any signs of scarring. His hands were delicate, like a woman’s hands, and the clothes he wore were fashionable for even Sydney or Melbourne. In comparison, the American prospector felt drab, wearing his faded flannel shirt, moleskin trousers tucked into knee-length boots and a wide sash around his waist, less the practical adornment of the big Colt he normally wore. He did not carry his guns in Rockhampton any more as the town was getting civilised and not like the days, a mere five years earlier, when Rockhampton was truly on the frontier.

‘How can I be of assistance to you?’ Hugh asked as he leant back in the leather chair. ‘And Missus O’Keefe’s interests, Mister Tracy?’

‘By investing this with Missus O’Keefe’s company,’ Luke replied as he dropped a canvas bag on the desk in front of the solicitor from which wads of banknotes spilled. Hugh almost fell off his chair.

‘God almighty, man! How much is there?’ he gasped in his surprise, leaning forward.

‘Should be three thousand pounds,’ Luke replied casually.

‘Dare I ask where you got so large an amount, Mister Tracy?’ the solicitor asked suspiciously, unable to take his eyes off the money.

‘Put it this way, Mister Darlington,’ Luke answered softly, ‘I didn’t rob or steal to get the money, but there are laws in this country about the exchange of gold for cash and, as a lawyer, I know you have to keep in confidence what I tell you.’

Hugh understood immediately. The Cohen connection! He guessed correctly that the American had used the Jewish storekeeper’s contacts in the jewellery trade to make the exchange. If three thousand pounds was the result on the table, he thought, how much had the gold been worth? – a lot more! There were considerable ‘fees’ in such exchanges.

But it was also puzzling that the man had not declared a legitimate strike and exchanged the gold through lawful means. Very puzzling indeed. This was ‘dirty money’ and Hugh’s first instinct was to dissociate himself from the American. But what connection was there to Kate?

His curiosity bettered his loyalty to the laws of the land. ‘Just how do you know Missus O’Keefe, Mister Tracy, if I may ask?’

‘The lady is a friend of mine,’ Luke answered, cutting any other inquiry into his relationship with Kate. ‘That is all you have to know, Mister Darlington.’

‘I think I understand,’ Hugh said enigmatically. The man was probably infatuated with Kate as half the single and married men in the district were. If Harry Hubner would leave his estate to Kate, why shouldn’t some fool of an American try to impress her with his money.

‘I want the money to be invested in a way that Missus O’Keefe doesn’t know about my involvement,’ Luke continued and Hugh became very suspicious of the American’s intentions. This was not what he had expected. He had anticipated the man was going to try to impress Kate with his contribution.

‘So you want to be a silent partner,’ Hugh said. ‘To invest and take a share of the profits.’

‘Not even that. I want Kate to use the money as she sees fit,’ Luke replied, shaking his head. ‘And after she is in a position to repay the money – she can return it to me through you.’

‘At what percentage interest return for yourself?’ the lawyer asked suspiciously.

‘None.’

Hugh shook his head slowly and sneered, ‘You aren’t much of a businessman, Mister Tracy. You place a considerable amount of money on my desk and tell me you don’t need to make it work for you. I am pleased you aren’t my bank manager.’

Luke bridled at the sneering comment on his business acumen. He had not liked the man from the moment he had met him and even less now. He flushed angrily but fought down his urge to grab the man by the throat and drag him across the table.

‘You just give me a receipt for the money,’ he growled. ‘Put it in Kate’s account, and tell her any story you like as to how she has come by the money, Mister Darlington, and I will pay you well.’

Hugh sensed it was not wise to rile the grizzled American prospector. The scar on his face testified that the man was someone who was used to physical danger, whereas he had always had the luxury of sheltering behind the law. He had never faced any situation where his life was on the line and his only contact with danger had been a vicarious one through the legal association he sometimes had with one or two of his clients – men who lived outside the law.

‘I think I can do that, Mister Tracy,’ he said reasonably. ‘If you will bear with me for a while I will prepare the necessary paperwork and the fee.’

Luke nodded and took out one of his evil-smelling cheroots to smoke. He sensed that the lawyer was not a man who would like the acrid smoke in his office.

When all matters had been settled, Luke left. The two men did not exchange a handshake on departing as a tacit agreement to dislike each other. Luke was not sure exactly why he disliked the solicitor but there was something about the man . . .

Hugh Darlington waited until Luke was out of sight before he closed the door to his office and walked quickly down to the police station. There was someone whom he had to see about an American who had contravened the gold laws of the colony. His motivations were not based on his responsibility to uphold the law, but the baser motivations based on a nagging jealousy and old-fashioned avarice.

FORTY-TWO

T
he day started so well for Granville White.

He sat in the rather spartan office that had once been David’s when he had temporarily controlled the companies and now he sat in the big leather chair that David had found so comfortable when he had so sanctimoniously passed judgement on his opinions. Opinions that, had they been put into practice, would have skyrocketed profits for the Macintosh companies, Granville brooded. But the pious David Macintosh had looked aghast at his ideas and thundered that if he didn’t desist in his ideas he would be removed from the family business. At least David had shown a good grace in not mentioning the ideas outside the office walls, Granville reflected with a sense of relief.

He gazed around the office. The only adornments were a few sepia-like framed depictions of ships at anchor or moored to the city’s wharves. Images captured by David on film and displayed with loving pride by him as frozen moments in time.

He smiled, leant back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head as he considered his position in the Macintosh empire. He was to all intents and purposes the real power behind the future of the company. Of course Lady Enid, his aunt, was a minor obstacle in his future ambitions. He discounted Sir Donald as of little consequence because he was solely obsessed with turning Glen View into an Antipodean Eden. But Enid would not last forever and all he had to do was bide his time before he had total control through Fiona.

He had requested the shift to David’s office as soon as he had been informed of his cousin’s untimely death. His aunt had been so distressed by the news of her beloved son’s death that she had not objected to his request and the symbolic act of occupying David’s old office was seemingly overlooked by her.

Granville was acutely aware of her intense dislike for him but with no male heirs to inherit the family enterprises that left only Fiona to produce a male heir and he was certain he could do that, given time and his wife’s compliance. Ahh . . . but some duties were not as irksome as dealing with bank managers and creditors.

To that extent he relished the idea of returning home that evening and inseminating his still beautiful and desirable wife. But first he would have to attend to the puzzling invitations that lay on his desk.

He unclasped his hands and leant forward to peruse the two delicately penned invitations on their respectively embossed letterheads. The first was from Lady Enid to call on her at 3 p.m. that day and the second was a note written in the bold hand of his sister, Penelope, to call on her at 7 p.m.

He frowned. He had not received any invitations from Aunt Enid since the dinner she had held supposedly for Penelope’s farewell before Christmas. His sister was due to sail in two weeks and he supposed the invitation to call on her was merely a meeting to discuss any matters concerning her financial affairs.

He shook his head and sighed contentedly. The matters were of little importance in the overall scheme of things. After all, everything was going so well to plan and, when he reflected on the previous few years, he considered most of everything he’d plotted had turned out well in the end.

Before he called on his aunt, he would stop over at the Australia Club and take a port with Sir George Hartwell. Within the confines of the exclusive men’s club, they could discuss the purchase of a block of tenement houses at Glebe. Sir George needed cash fast for his gambling debts and Granville could satisfy his need. Sir George had expressed his gratitude to him on a previous occasion when Granville had mentioned a generous sum he was prepared to offer for the block.

Granville’s coach delivered him to the club, where he was greeted by the doorman, an old Waterloo veteran, who ushered him inside the tactfully plush bastion of colonial gentlemen. A polite murmur of male voices pervaded the club as did the pungent aroma of cigars and oiled leather. Here was a place where politics and financial power mixed as easily as the scotch and water served to the well-heeled moguls of the Australian colonies. The club was patronised by its exclusive clientele of wealthy squatters visiting from their properties, merchant bankers from their establishments and men like Granville whose controlling connections with the well-respected Macintosh companies assured him a place in the company of the colony’s version of the aristocracy.

Granville glanced around the luxurious smoking room and saw Sir George sitting alone in one of the big leather chairs reading a newspaper while puffing contentedly on a fat cigar and toying with a tumbler of scotch. He looked up as Granville walked across the room towards him and put down his paper.

‘Mister White, I see you are as punctual as ever,’ he said without much of a welcoming smile. ‘Have a seat, old chap.’

Granville plumped himself down in a dark leather chair opposite the knighted colonial, who was a man in his late forties and whose dissipated face reflected the story of his misspent life. Small streaks of alcohol-burst veins lined his nose and his hands trembled as he held the cigar in one hand and the tumbler of scotch in the other. At their first meeting, Sir George had expressed his surprise that Granville would want to purchase a property that teemed with nothing more than the riffraff of society: working-class people with large broods of brats and little money to pay rents.

‘I would assume that your visit here is to confirm your desire to go ahead with the purchase,’ Sir George said as he puffed on his cigar and lounged in his chair. ‘But I am rather curious as to why you should still want to purchase a property that is not returning any rental profit of note.’

Granville’s reply that his purchase was based on humanitarian grounds did not fool Sir George. His eyes narrowed and he stared at the younger man sitting opposite him, who toyed with a small goblet of port wine. The club stewards made a point of knowing what the members imbibed and they were alert to satisfy that need promptly upon a member’s arrival.

‘You are jeopardising the Macintosh name, old chap,’ Sir George said quietly between puffs of his expensive cigar.

‘I am sure you have the wrong idea, Sir George,’ Granville responded in all innocence. ‘My intentions are honourable.’

Sir George smiled contemptuously at the reply, as he suspected that the young lion of the Macintosh companies had more carnal aims in mind for the redevelopment of the tenements.

‘I have heard a whisper that Lady Macintosh does not particularly like you,’ Sir George said as he twirled the scotch in his glass before taking a sip from it. ‘Should she learn of your . . . ah . . . business enterprise at Glebe I’m sure she would disinherit you from the companies.’

Granville fixed him with a smile. ‘I am sure I do not know what you are talking about, Sir George,’ he said in a way that indicated that the topic of conversation should wisely be dropped and, as Sir George did not want to jeopardise his opportunity to receive the cash deposit that would not appear in the purchase documents, he let the matter go. It was an under-the-table agreement which satisfied both parties.

For Granville, the purchase of the rundown block of tiny tenements gave him an opportunity to exploit the lucrative vice of prostitution. Where there was poverty, women provided their bodies for the rent money and food for their children.

But it was not the mothers Granville was interested in so much as their prepubescent daughters. The fad for men to obtain their tiny bodies was all the rage in Victorian England and so-called virgins fetched good prices as a supposed cure for syphilis. The tenements promised fertile ground for Granville’s recruiting campaign overseen by underworld thugs recruited from The Rocks. He would provide women for his brothels but it would be the financial return on the prepubescent girls which would swell his personal coffers through a maze of untraceable financial transactions. He had long plotted how certain monies could be skimmed from the Macintosh companies to be used in even more lucrative enterprises and the thought of having personal access to the young girls stirred him. He would remember young Jennifer’s childish body when he went home to service his wife tonight and the exquisite thought caused him to squirm as his dark lust rose.

But first he had business to attend to, and with the discreet handing over of a thick envelope stuffed with paper currency of the colony to Sir George, he had ensured the first step in his depraved desire to sate his lust.

Sir George did not bother to examine the contents of the package. It was not the done thing to question a gentleman’s honesty and he’d slipped the envelope inside his coat pocket without a word.

The transaction at the club had gone smoothly and Sir George had insisted on sealing their bargain with an excellent chilled French champagne, and so it was that Granville arrived in his carriage at his aunt’s splendid residence overlooking the harbour feeling particularly mellow.

As Granville stood at the front door waiting to be invited inside, he had an idle thought that, in time, the magnificent house would most probably be his residence. Not that the house his in-laws had given his wife as a wedding present was not in its own right a magnificent residence. It was just that the Macintosh residence symbolised a certain place in colonial society. Its existence had been a focal point in social functions for the colonial aristocracy over the years.

Betsy opened the door and ushered him inside. She took his top hat and cane as a matter of protocol and escorted him to the drawing room where he gazed around at the paintings on the walls and mused that the European art was already accumulating a good monetary value. Enid had been wise in purchasing them. He was surprised to see an Australian painting by Captain Forrest on the wall among the European landscapes, but he remembered how his aunt had once commented on how much the landscape of a mountain in Hobart reminded her of a European setting.

Enid was not present, as he had known she would not be. She had a habit of making people wait. She liked to remind her visitors that they were in her house, and she responded to her times, not theirs.

Enid entered the room and Granville turned away from his perusal of the artwork to greet her with an icy smile. He was surprised to see how in control of her emotions she was, as he had expected her to be grief-stricken for the terrible loss of her favourite son. But the woman was the woman of old: cool and expressionless. She would have been an excellent gambler, he thought.

‘Aunt Enid,’ he said with just a slight and polite nod of his head. ‘I am here as you requested in your kind invitation.’

She did not reply and for a moment Granville could feel the mellowness of the champagne evaporating, to be replaced by the unpleasant taste one gets after too much cheap port wine.

She sat herself gracefully on an elegant French-designed drawing room chair with ornately carved legs and placed her hands in her lap. Granville felt the power of her silence and retreated to a similar chair in the corner of the room as if to put a distance between himself and the forebidding woman.

‘Are Fiona and my grand-daughters well?’ she asked coldly and Granville immediately knew that their meeting would somehow ruin his day.

‘You should see them more often, Aunt Enid,’ he replied solicitously. ‘They are, after all, your grandchildren.’

Enid’s lips pursed as if she were considering something distasteful in his remark. ‘And they have
your
blood,’ she replied quietly. ‘Although I suppose I cannot blame them for that.’

Granville blanched at her overt slur on his two daughters. ‘Why did you ask me here?’ he snapped as a way of showing her that he had no time for her insults.

‘I wanted you to come here so that I could personally tell you that I know you were instrumental in David’s death,’ she replied calmly and Granville felt the blood drain from his face as she continued: ‘And that I will not rest until you have paid the full price for his death.’

‘Is that all?’ he responded equally calmly, although he did not feel it. How could she know? he wondered. Mort was not likely to talk and even the police agreed that David was murdered by the savages.

He rose from the chair to indicate that the conversation was at an end. ‘I will see my own way out,’ he added but Enid had not finished with him.

‘You well know I cannot prove your conspiracy in my son’s brutal murder. But that does not matter because I will have my revenge and you will suffer as I have suffered.’

‘Revenge, dear Aunt Enid?’ Granville smiled smugly and challenged, ‘And how will you have your revenge on an innocent man? What can you do to me, the husband of your daughter and the father of your grand-daughters? Would you have your revenge on a grandson when Fiona bears me a son? Oh no, dear Aunt, your obsession with the Macintosh name and its bloodline would never allow you to seek revenge against the father of your grandson. You might consider the idea of revenge while I only have daughters. But not if I am the father of your grandson.’

Enid listened impassively to his carefully delivered rebuke.

‘My grandson will be my strong right arm to smite you down,’ she said in a quiet and controlled voice. ‘Just as the Lord smites the enemies of His people. Oh, and you can believe every word I say, when I tell you that it will be
my
grandson who will eventually destroy you and all you hold dear, if that is possible for a man as evil as you.’

Granville stood transfixed by the burning green flame of the emerald eyes fixed on him and he had a terrible feeling that he was in the presence of some Old Testament prophet or a medieval witch casting a terrible curse on him. He shuddered and had a great need to be out of her presence.

Without a word he turned and hurried from the room, with her strange words echoing in his head.
‘My grandson will be my strong right arm to smite you down.’
Logic told him that her statement was nothing more than the delusional ramblings of a grief-stricken woman. How could her grandson be used against him when Fiona had not borne him a son as yet?

Duffy!

The name came to him like some terrible ghost rising from the floor in front of him. A ghost of a tall and broad-shouldered young Irishman with thick dark curling hair and steel-grey eyes. And the ghost smiled, mocking his fear. But the bastard son of Fiona and Michael Duffy had been sent to a baby farm. He could not surely be alive. The woman was truly mad. And, as he reassured himself, the smile on the ghost’s face faded to an agonised grimace of despair. Now it was Granville’s turn to smile grimly at his own unfounded fears.