Ghost Gum Valley Read online

  GHOST GUM VALLEY

  First published in Australia in 2012 by

  Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

  Suite 19A, Level 1, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  A CBS Company

  Sydney New York London Toronto New Delhi

  Visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.au

  © Johanna Nicholls 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Author: Nicholls, Johanna.

  Title: Ghost gum valley / Johanna Nicholls.

  ISBN: 9780731815210 (pbk)

  ISBN: 9781922052216 (ebk)

  Subjects: Penal colonies--New South Wales--Fiction. New South Wales--Social life and customs--Fiction.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Editor: Jody Lee

  Cover design: Blue Cork Design

  Internal design and typesetting: Midland Typesetters, Australia

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Book One: The Liaison

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Book Two: The Mask

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Author’s Notes

  Author’s Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Sydney, New South Wales, January 1836

  The whole community is rancorously divided into parties on almost every subject. Among those, who from their station in life ought to be the best, many live in such open profligacy that respectable people cannot associate with them...there is much jealousy between the children of the rich Emancipist; the former being pleased to consider honest men as interlopers. The whole population, rich and poor, are bent on acquiring wealth...

  Charles Darwin

  His 1836 reflections on the Penal Colony of New South Wales during the fourth of his five years as Naturalist on a survey voyage around the globe on HMS Beagle.

  In honour of the creativity and courage of Actors, Actresses and Comedians throughout the ages.

  With special tribute to the First Fleet convicts and marines who performed the first play on Australian soil, Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer, January 4, 1789.

  And in memory of the quixotic ‘Father of Australian Theatre’, Barnett Levey.

  Book One

  The Liaison

  A mistress should be like a little country retreat near the town,

  Not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away.

  William Wycherley, 1675, The Country Wife, Act I

  Chapter 1

  Sydney Town, Penal Colony of New South Wales, December 1832

  Marmaduke Gamble felt a surge of something akin to love for the bawdy mistress of his native land.

  You’ll never be a lady, Sydney. But you’re my kind of woman. Lusty, voluptuous, gutsy, mercenary – but dead honest for all that.

  The marine blue of Port Jackson’s giant harbour, busy with convict transports and trading ships under sail, reflected the electric blue of a summer sky so high, so cloudless that Marmaduke was shocked to realise the truth. It had taken four years travelling the northern hemisphere for him to forget the magic of an Australian sky.

  He stood on the rooftop of the new luxurious Princess Alexandrina Hotel with the stiff harbour breeze buffeting his long hair and silk dressing-robe. Sydney Town lay at his feet waiting for him to rediscover her. When he had set sail for England as a naïve youth of twenty, humiliated and vowing never to return, the Sydney he left in his wake was dismissed by many as the Whore of Oceania – like some lush, raucous street harlot who was forced to bed all-comers. He now saw Sydney with fresh eyes, transformed like a woman who has risen from the gutter to become a beautiful courtesan and could demand tribute from all her admirers – convicts, free settlers, military officers and men of Quality right up to the new Anglo-Irish Governor Sir Richard Bourke.

  Below him lay the panorama of Sydney Town, its northern foreshores dense with species of eucalypts. South of the harbour the wild contrast in architecture seemed to be locked in a battle for supremacy. Impressive mellow sandstone public buildings and church spires that would not disgrace Georgian London stood at close quarters with the infamous Rocks area, packed with rows of hovels and strings of shanties that were an unwelcome reminder of how his Emancipist father Garnet Gamble had begun to amass his fortune.

  Sydney’s tallest building, completed during his absence, was the extraordinary five-storey complex that comprised a huge warehouse, topped by a mill and windmill and, fronting George Street, the façade of the grand Royal Hotel that housed the Theatre Royal.

  Marmaduke gave a hoot of delight. My God! Barnett Levey actually did it! Against all odds he’s achieved his dream. Built our first professional theatre!

  He remembered his excitement as a youth, that June day in 1827, a witness to the celebration that drew an even larger crowd than a public hanging – the laying of the foundation stone for Barnett Levey’s entrepreneurial vision, a lavish 1000-seat theatre.

  Today, Marmaduke saw the windmill on the top of Sydney’s tallest building as a symbol of the penal colony’s growing wealth and culture. He knew Sydney’s first purpose-built theatre was only flourishing due to the liberal policies of Governor Bourke, who had overturned his autocratic predecessor’s veto of Levey’s theatrical licence. Hungry for culture, all levels of Sydney society rejoiced in the young actor-manager’s victory. But it had come at great cost to Levey’s health and finances.

  Thank God the convict class can now enjoy Shakespeare under the same roof as the Quality, no longer segregated by Darling’s ban on social contact between bond and free. I reckon the Bard of Avon must be smiling in Heaven to see his groundlings in the pit booing Richard III and weeping over Romeo and Juliet.

  Marmaduke decided he would support the new theatre by hiring a private box for the season. But he reminded himself he had not returned to the Colony merely to continue his pursuit of pleasure and adventure.

  He hurried down to his chambers to change into appropriate clothing to launch himself into Colonial Society. Today was a red-letter day. The prime reason for his r
eturn to New South Wales was to lay claim to the inheritance his father had withheld from him.

  Checking his appearance in the full-length mirror Marmaduke was pleased by the immaculate cut of his Savile Row tailcoat and trousers but frustrated by his usual battle – the art of keeping the wings of his shirt collar high enough to be fashionable yet just low enough to be free to turn his head.

  What a bloody stupid fashion. I’d ring Beau Brummel’s neck if he hadn’t long gone to God!

  He tied back his long, dark mane of hair in a ponytail that made him look like an eighteenth century pirate – a style that had intensely irritated his father and was reason enough for Marmaduke to refuse to have it shorn off in order to become a ‘real man’ in his father’s eyes. His Currency-style long hair was an indelible part of his identity.

  You failed in your quest to make a man of me in your own image, Father, but I’m my own man now. A hybrid. The outward appearance of an English gentleman, thanks to London tailors, but I’ve retained the native-born Currency traits you tried to eliminate.

  Marmaduke surveyed his reflection critically as he assumed a rapid series of poses impersonating different types of Englishmen – an effete Regency dandy, a pompous government official, a fiery Whig orator making his maiden speech, a jaded libertine confident of his prowess of seduction, finally assuming to the cocksure stance of a Currency Lad.

  In Europe he had had no need to impersonate an English gentleman. Arriving as a naive Colonial, he had camouflaged his embarrassing status of virginity by a reverse show of confidence, making no attempt to disguise his Australian accent and swaggering like an adventurer into the drawing rooms of the gentry. To his great surprise he discovered that delightful English trait – the acceptance of eccentricity. Wherever he went he was feted as something of a novelty, like a rare Antipodean plant plucked from a hothouse in Kew Gardens. When invited to house parties on country estates, he rode and hunted with gentlemen, was careful to avoid young virgins but charmed older matrons and widows, discreetly entering Society via the bedroom door.

  A flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos alighted on the balcony, railing and squawked in chorus. Marmaduke had a vivid memory of his beautiful mother’s wicked smile as she taught her tame cockatoo, Amaru, the phrases designed to infuriate Garnet.

  Marmaduke smiled at this rare happy childhood image as he grabbed his top hat, gloves and cane and made for the door, intent on visiting the only two real friends he had in the whole colony. One was Josiah Mendoza, the elderly watchmaker who had found him distraught and broke after fleeing the Gamble mansion, Bloodwood Hall, and had given him bed and board and taught him some tricks of the jewellery trade.

  Thank God for the lucky night at the gaming tables that enabled me to become his silent partner in our jewellery store.

  Marmaduke’s other old friend, Edwin Bentleigh, despite being a member of the two species Marmaduke distrusted most – a barrister and an Englishman – was a man he would entrust with his life.

  With good reason. Edwin’s already saved me from the gallows.

  George Street was swarming with all levels of society. Elegant carriages fought for access between lumbering bullock-drays, chaises and carts loaded with farm produce. As Marmaduke crossed the road to gain a closer look at the exterior of the Royal Hotel, his passage was blocked by the crowd drawn to a procession. Marching behind a red-coated military band, by whose uniforms he recognised as the 17th Leicestershire Regiment, was a body of Freemasons dressed in full regalia complete with gold braid, medallions and painted Masonic aprons. But the true catalyst for the carnival mood of the crowd was an open landau carriage drawn by white horses.

  The sole woman passenger waved her gloved hand like some Hanoverian queen acknowledging the motley throng of subjects running beside her carriage, shouting out their adulation and raining her with rose petals.

  Who is she? Some European aristocrat dethroned by a revolution? Who knows? I’ve been isolated from world news for near three months at sea.

  The answer became clear when Marmaduke caught individual cries of ‘Bravo!’, and a bold Cockney voice that demanded, ‘Sing for us, darlin’!’

  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.