Ghost Gum Valley by Johanna Nicholls

Author:Johanna Nicholls
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia

Chapter 29

The smoky cave was quiet except for the crackling sounds of the small campfire.

Isabel lay asleep under a blanket. Marmaduke drank a pannikin of wine, trying to sort out his confusion about the events of the past weeks.

Long, lazy days of bush exploration had passed since the afternoon they had ‘cheated death’. Neither had spoken of that experience on the bank of the billabong, but Marmaduke could not free himself from the images in his head. It was if the events of that whole day were divorced from time.

Isabel had never spoken again about the stranger who she believed had been watching them just before the accident. But Marmaduke did not doubt she had seen in greater detail what he believed had been a trick of sunlight and shadows – Klaus von Starbold.

Marmaduke drank deeply of his wine. He did not realise he was humming a tune under his breath until Isabel stirred.

‘That’s an old German love song, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, very old, medieval. Can’t seem to get it out of my head.’

‘What do the words mean?’

‘Your curiosity is insatiable.’

‘Can’t I ask a simple question?’

‘Righto, you win. I reckon a man leaves a woman unsatisfied at his peril. My Hessian tutor – the man I murdered – used to sing that song when we were walking in the bush. Klaus von Starbold had a rich, deep voice speaking German and English. But when he sang this song there was no doubting it was a love song. His eyes took on that faraway look as if he was searching for another time, another place.’

‘That almost sounds as if you liked him.’

‘I did in the beginning.’

Marmaduke could see how intently Isabel observed him and wasn’t surprised when she prompted him.

‘How did he become your final tutor?’

‘Garnet wanted to pack me off to London to be educated as an English gentleman. Mother was desperate to find a tutor to keep me at home. She wanted me to study languages, to share her love of the classics and theatre. To keep her quiet Garnet advertised in all the Colonies’ newspapers. Klaus von Starbold had just arrived in Hobart looking for work and read Garnet’s ad in the Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser. He fitted the bill perfectly so Garnet hired him.’

‘Does it upset you to be reminded of him?’

‘Not at all. What’s done is done. No regrets on that score.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Oh, y’know, tall, blond, blue-eyed, athletic in the Germanic mould. Terribly correct in manners and bearing. But beneath the surface I could feel there was a wild, angry quality he barely restrained. He was about twenty years older than me. Claimed he’d been an officer in some Hessian regiment attached to the British Army. Maybe his name was Anglicised. I got the impression he’d been drummed out for challenging his commanding officer to a duel or maybe flirting with the man’s wife. In my young eyes he cut a glamorous figure. One part hero, one part rogue, with a dash of mystery.

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