Flight of the Eagle (63 page)

‘Lady Macintosh,’ Catherine said softly and with feigned humility, ‘I know that you may not approve of me as a wife for Patrick but I want you to know that fate cruelly divided us and yet has brought us near to finding each other again. But I would leave now if I felt that my presence in your house might cause dissension between you and your grandson. I love Patrick with all my heart and know that beside him and with your help we can make the Macintosh name even greater. I humbly leave that decision to you.’

‘Are you a regular attendant of a Protestant church?’ Enid asked.

‘I am a member of the Church of Ireland,’ Catherine replied, and was just a little confused when Enid smiled.

‘That is just one step above being a Papist,’ she said. ‘And I fear that if you and Patrick have a daughter she may be inclined to perform on the stage like her mother.’ Catherine made as if to protest but Enid cut her short. ‘Oh, never fear, I will not ask you to leave, and I can see that you are confused by my acceptance. It has much to do with righting past wrongs that I must accept some responsibility. I think that you and I both have mutual interests at heart. I am now convinced that my grandson chose wisely.’ She paused and reached for the letters on the desk. ‘You may wish to read these when you move out of your hotel and move into my home to await Patrick's return. I am sure that your presence is the best gift I can give my grandson when he arrives back in the colony.’

Catherine did not know whether to laugh or cry. Somehow she felt that she had been outwitted by the woman, but was not sure.
A gift …
the words had possessive overtones but for now that did not matter. She would be reunited with Patrick and knew she would become his wife.

As she accepted the letters handed to her, Catherine had a fleeting thought that in the future the formidable woman would become at the same time her best friend and worst enemy.

SIXTY-EIGHT

T
he wagon was burnt to its axles. Patrick stood staring at the scene of the final stand of his father against the Boer commando. Here and there in the long grass the sun glinted off the expended brass cartridge cases of the Winchester. It all seemed so unreal now that the sun was shining over the sea of waving grass of the African veldt. So peaceful, as if nothing had happened.

The patrol of ten mounted British soldiers behind him gazed about the plain with curiosity. They had been briefed on the situation at the De Aar outpost by their troop commander, Lieutenant Croft: one man standing alone against a party of heavily armed Dutchmen. The outcome was inevitable considering the time it had taken the Australian to get his message from the Zulu kraal of Chief Mbulazi to the British army outpost in the town.

‘It appears that we have arrived too late, Captain Duffy,’ the young lieutenant said sympathetically. ‘I knew your father personally and he was a fine gentleman.’

Patrick did not answer but stared at the wagon. There were no bodies and very few signs, other than the expended cartridge cases, of a fierce struggle. Nor was there blood on the grass, he noted, as he scanned the area where most of the empty cartridge cases lay. But that was to be expected, considering that it had taken three days to contact and mobilise the British military patrol from the town.

‘Naturally we will carry out inquiries,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But these damned mutinous Dutchmen are unlikely to even admit to leaving their farms. The bastards are a surly lot.’

‘Possibly, you might make inquiries as to whether or not anyone has come across my father, Mister Croft,’ Patrick replied as he stared at the distant horizon where the sun hovered. ‘I doubt that he is dead.’

The officer nodded but with little conviction for the captain's wishful thinking. ‘I will do that, sir,’ he replied. ‘But in the meantime there is little use hanging around here.’

Patrick returned to the mount the army had provided him. He swung into the saddle and the lieutenant gave the order to return to De Aar. There was little more he could do than file a report on the incident and hand the matter over to the local police to investigate. Maybe from their informants they would at least determine where the Irishman's body was buried. At least that would be enough to put him to rest. It was impossible for any man, the young English officer considered, no matter how good he was, to escape the determined assault of a Boer commando.

Tell your mother that you love her …
came softly to Patrick's thoughts as he rode on the track back to the town of De Aar. Why had he not asked his father whether he had loved his mother? But he had failed to ask a lot of questions. Maybe he was foolish in refusing to acknowledge his father's inevitable death up against such overwhelming odds. Why was it that when he left he had refused to admit to himself that he would never see his father again? They had not fooled each other with their bravely optimistic talk when they parted. They both knew that they were unlikely ever to meet again in this world of light and shadow. Was it guilt that he had survived and his father had died that refused to let him think of his father as dead? Had he not heard the distant, furious popping of rifles from the direction of the wagon as he floated down the river in the dark? Then the dreadful silence that descended on the veldt.

His father might be dead but the brief memory of a tall, strong man with one eye persisted. He would always be alive whilst he was remembered, Patrick thought, though not with the sad thoughts of inconsolable grief. He could not really feel this for a man he barely knew. His knowledge of his father had only extended to a brief and traumatic few hours under the guns of the Dutchmen.

He would return to Sydney via Greece at the first possible opportunity. Catherine lived somewhere and wherever she was he would find her.

SIXTY-NINE

V
ery few people attended the burial of Granville White in Sydney. His body had been transported from Queensland on orders from Fiona. She did not want him to be buried in the same earth as her father and eldest brother. Such a gesture, she felt, would have been an insult to the memory of her father's work in establishing his beloved property which Granville had attempted to dispose of.

Only a handful of business acquaintances stood in the warm spring sunshine to listen to the minister drone on about the financial achievements of the man in the coffin. There was little else he could think to say about Granville without risking his own soul with fabricated good works.

Fiona had attended as the dutiful, grieving wife. She stood dressed in black with a veil to keep the buzzing clouds of flies from her face and one or two of the male mourners allowed themselves a sly and most disrespectful admiring glance at her. She was still a fine figure of a woman with a considerable dowry for any man who should be fortunate enough to win her hand.

But sharing her life with a man was not something Fiona even entertained for a moment. Before the sudden death of her husband she had arranged to travel to Europe to be with Penelope in Germany. There she would also be close to her daughters who had grown into beautiful young women and who revelled in the charming attentions of the young men of the European courts.

The death of her husband had actually been a godsent opportunity to sever her ties with Sydney.
No loose ends reaching back in her life!
Nor did she feel guilty for the lack of feeling other than relief that she experienced at the news of Granville's death. For the man had led an evil and destructive life that had probably included the murder of her beloved brother David those many years earlier. The only positive thing she could acknowledge was that he had been a good provider which had allowed her to maintain her elegant lifestyle. And the terms of his will, unaltered from better days between them, returned the third share of the Macintosh companies to her – a third share she had originally transferred to him to protect her son Patrick from Granville's intentions to discredit him.

Fiona was relieved when the final traditional words were intoned by the minister for the commitment of Granville's body to the earth. The few mourners attending the service paid their respects to her as they returned to their waiting carriages outside the cemetery. She did not linger at the graveside but walked slowly back to her carriage.

‘Fiona!’

The voice that called to her from one of the carriages alongside the cemetery caught her unawares. She ceased walking and stared at her mother's fine carriage, distinguished by the thoroughbred set of greys in harness.

‘Mother,’ she answered. It was a word that came to her lips without thinking and Enid stepped from her coach. As she walked over to her, Fiona wondered at her mother's attendance at the funeral. Enid's face did not hold the hardset expression she remembered from their last meeting in the library. Instead, she detected a gentleness she barely remembered. ‘I did not expect to see you here,’ Fiona said when her mother reached her. ‘Considering how I know you felt about Granville.’

‘I did not come to pay my respects to
that
evil man,’ she answered softly. ‘God will be his judge now and not I. I came to see you.’

‘Me!’ her daughter replied with bitter disbelief. ‘Why should you wish to see me?’

‘Do you think we could walk together, away from the curious stares of the people here?’ Enid said, indicating the few remaining mourners who recognised her. ‘I suspect our meeting will cause tongues to wag.’

‘I see no harm in your request,’ Fiona replied.

The two women walked aimlessly towards the rows of headstones where only the dead could listen to their words. When they had gone a short distance into the cemetery Enid broke the silence between them. ‘Fiona, my daughter, I have done your life a great injustice over the years. I did so out of the sin of pride. A pride that was wrong because it has caused you so much grief. It has caused us both so much pain and I am here now to beg your forgiveness.’

Fiona stopped and turned to stare into her mother's face. Had she actually reached out to her with an apology for the two decades of alienating bitterness that had existed between them? She gazed into her mother's eyes as if searching for some sign of deceit. But she saw none and found her own emotions tumbling over each other like a leaf caught in the stream of a summer storm. In the rising heat of the early summer that had come to Sydney, she felt as helpless as such a dry leaf. Her mother's expression was that of a tormented woman seeking exorcism for the ghosts that haunted her past. The ghost of a love lost between mother and daughter that lingered even yet.

‘You know that I am booked for passage to Germany,’ she replied. ‘And you must know why.’

‘I know you will be going to Penelope,’ her mother said quietly. ‘Oh, I cannot say that I understand that which exists between you and your cousin, but I
can
say what exists in my heart for you. I know I have been a selfish old woman. That I did a terrible wrong in not telling Patrick of your love for him.’ She hesitated in her words and glanced away at a lone gravedigger sweating to prepare a grave. Then she turned to face her daughter and continued. ‘Patrick has telegraphed from South Africa to say that he is returning to Sydney. I expect that he will arrive home after you have taken passage to Europe. I just want you to know that when he returns I intend telling him of your love for him – and of my foolish complicity in concealing that truth from him over the years.’

‘You would do that?’ Fiona asked softly. ‘Risk losing his love by telling him the truth?’

‘I once met his father,’ Enid said with a humility her daughter had not heard in the many years she had known her. ‘I saw in him a strength and character I have never seen in any other man, except when I look into your son's eyes. The boy is his father's son and, as such, capable of great things. I trust I am right in hoping he can forgive me for the wrong that I have done you both. Had Michael Duffy not been a Papist I think he should have been your husband, despite his lowly station in life.’

Fiona reached out to take her mother's hands in hers. They felt so fragile and a surge of heartbreaking sympathy for her mother welled up in her tears. For a precious moment she was not the strong and stern woman, capable of ruthless manipulation of a financial empire, but a frail old woman who was her mother.

‘You will never know what your words have meant to me, Mama,’ she said with tears spilling down her face. ‘No matter what should occur in our lives from now I will treasure your words, as if they were the most precious things ever said.’

Fiona suddenly became aware of a strange thing. It was something she had never seen her mother do before. Her mother was weeping!

‘I know he will cross the ocean to see you,’ Enid said between sobs. ‘I know my grandson has a need to meet the woman whose blood is his. Just as much as he had a need to meet his father.’

They held each other in an embrace that swallowed the years of bitterness as if they had never existed, the reconciliation of mother and daughter within sight of Granville's grave.

Enid gently disengaged herself from the embrace but continued to hold her daughter's hands. ‘Will you dine with me tonight?’

‘Yes, Mama, I would like that very much.’

‘I have so much to tell you about your son, with so little time before you depart.’

‘We have all the time remaining in our lives,’ her daughter gently chided. As much as I long to go to my son I also know in my heart that Patrick will seek me out when the time is right for us both.’

‘I wish that were true,’ Enid said as she brushed away her tears with a little cotton handkerchief. ‘But I fear my time in this world is limited. When I am gone Patrick will need the guiding hand of his mother to take
our
name into the next century.’

Our name!
Fiona thought with a start.
The Macintosh name!

‘Our name,’ she echoed. ‘Father would have been proud of Patrick. If he only knew him as you have, Mama.’

The gravedigger stopped to ease his sweating body for a moment. He leant on his shovel and stared with idle curiosity at the two elegantly dressed women weeping and laughing together a short distance from him. Must be Irish, he mused as he watched them. Only the Irish could find humour in death. Probably going to a wake after the funeral. Lucky devils! Then he continued to fill the open grave with earth as the two women walked slowly away, hand in hand.