A Grand Passion
ANNE DE LISLE lives with her husband, Ian Russell, and dogs, Topsy and Lottie, in Baddow House, Maryborough, Queensland. She is the author of several internationally successful historical romances and is now working on a contemporary novel about a group of close friends, their lives, loves and heartbreak.
Visit Anne’s website at www.annedelisle.com
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A Grand Passion
ePub ISBN 9781742745510
A GRAND PASSION
A BANTAM BOOK
First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2007 by Bantam
Copyright © Anne de Lisle, 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, 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
de Lisle, Anne, 1958–.
A grand passion.
ISBN 9781863256445.
1. de Lisle, Anne, 1958–. 2. Couples – Queensland – Maryborough – Biography. 3. Man-woman relationships – Queensland – Maryborough. 4. Dwellings – Remodeling – Queensland – Maryborough. I. Title.
920.02
Transworld Publishers,
a division of Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House New Zealand Limited
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Transworld Publishers,
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Random House Inc
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Cover photo by Ashley Smith Photography
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For Young Lochinvar
FLOOR PLANS OF BADDOW HOUSE
CONTENTS
COVER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
IMPRINT PAGE
DEDICATION
FLOOR PLANS OF BADDOW HOUSE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1 DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 2 GETTING IN
CHAPTER 3 NEGOTIATION AND ACQUISITION
CHAPTER 4 MOVING IN
CHAPTER 5 SWEET MORNING
CHAPTER 6 DODGING THE DEAL
CHAPTER 7 WILD LIFE AND WILD CORPSES
CHAPTER 8 GEORGIE
CHAPTER 9 ELECTRICS AND OTHER MATTERS
CHAPTER 10 GEORGIE’S GHOST
CHAPTER 11 UNDERPINNING
CHAPTER 12 PLASTER, PAINTS AND PUD
CHAPTER 13 SCREAMS IN THE PARK
CHAPTER 14 CHRISTMAS, PUDDINGS AND FLAMES
CHAPTER 15 ANDREW’S GHOST
CHAPTER 16 VERANDAHS
CHAPTER 17 VISITORS FROM THE PAST
CHAPTER 18 PROGRESS, PETER AND THE POPE
CHAPTER 19 FLOODS, RAIN AND THE GATHERING STORM
CHAPTER 20 RESOLUTION
CHAPTER 21 CROCODILES IN THE PARK
CHAPTER 22 KITCHEN
CHAPTER 23 MOTHER MARY – AND MARRIAGE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LOCHINVAR
PICTURE SECTION
PROLOGUE
IAN AND I WERE determined to escape. The necessity had preyed on our minds and dominated our conversation for ages. Round and round we went, with ideas, questions and words, with words, questions and ideas. But the solutions wouldn’t come.
For more than twenty years we had both lived in the small country town of Montville, high on the Blackhall Range in south-east Queensland. Ian had been married to Jenny and I had been married to Chris. But fate chose to play us both cruelly. Within a year of each other, I lost my marriage to divorce and Ian lost his wife to cancer.
We were shambling around in a twilight world, each blind to any plight but our own until one day, lonely, and more than a little desperate, Ian rang me up. ‘This is one miserable person calling another,’ he said. ‘I’d like to take you out to lunch.’
Neither of us wanted a new partner. We were each far too depressed with our lot to recognise wanting anything at all. I didn’t even want to go out to lunch, but it seemed churlish to refuse.
We were both hideously nervous. I can’t remember what we ate, but I do know we drank a lot of wine. We both vowed not to talk about our pasts. Neither of us succeeded. In the end it was fun; a bright day on an otherwise bleak horizon. We decided to do it again.
In the beginning, our ritual was lunch once a week, but it soon became obvious that neither of us could wait an entire week. We were each others’ salve, each others’ medication; a miracle cure for the wretchedness. Like adolescents, phone calls were several times a day. When Ian couldn’t sleep at night, he’d ring, and our talk would last into the wee hours.
We knew from the moment on our third, tentative date together when Ian grew serious and said, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’, that we would one day set up house together. But we were two people carrying enough emotional baggage to fill the cargo hold of a jumbo jet. So many issues, so many complications: families to consider, past lives to get over, new lives to come to terms with. Attempting a future together seemed fraught with dangers. Oh, for the simplicity of youth, to be twenty years old and in love for the first time.
Through all the pain, reluctance, indecision, fear and guilt, there were only two things of which we were certain: apart we felt miserable, when we were together we were content.
In our home town we knew everyone and everyone knew us – our business, our respective sadnesses, how we had behaved, reacted, felt, coped. We were two goldfish in a bowl and we didn’t like it. Besides, we had both known some very sad times on Montville’s hills of pleasant green. Forging a successful future together seemed dependent on escape. But where could we go?
We began to scout around. Business commitments meant that every week Ian would have to return to Montville for two days and a night. We decided that a two-hour journey was the most he should have to do on such a regular basis, but were determined to take the full two hours we’d allowed ourselves, the further the better for our new life, our new beginning.
We looked at the map, we drew circles, measured radii, got quite scientific. Something propelled us to the town of Maryborough.
Maryborough is two hours due north of Montville, an easy run up the highway. We know it to be to be an old town, plump with history and sweet little Queenslander homes. An idyllic cottage began to take shape in my dreams. A neat little cottage, a garden framed by frangipanis and jacarandas, walls shaded by a deep verandah, fragrant with jasmine, honeysuckle and clambering roses.
We couldn’t wait to start looking.
CHAPTER 1
DISCOVERY
WE DRIVE TO Maryborough on a reconnaissance mission and find ourselves in Queens Park, overlooking the Mary River. Already we can scent the history. The trees are ancient and massive, there is a Victorian-era fountain and rotunda, and cannons point defensively at the river, relics of a time when th
e new inhabitants of this land feared to lose their precious shores to other foreign colonisers.
We wander about, soaking it all in. We stroll beneath a rose trellis, find a wishing well, toss in a few coins then stroll to the river and on down Wharf Street.
What a bounty of historic buildings. We pass the Court House and its arched loggias remind me of old Singapore in the heyday of Raffles: tennis in the afternoons and Pimms on the verandah. It’s hard to believe we’re not on a movie set as we saunter past the Customs House and Customs House Hotel, the Port Residence and the Bond Store. We venture inside the Bond Store, and see walls of handmade bricks, an earthen-floored cellar. Astonishingly, some of the original liquor barrels are still there. Wharf Street is the sort of scene you might encounter in one of those places built for tourism, where you pay admittance, see locals in period costume and watch re-enactments. But this is real: normal people going about their daily business, apparently oblivious to the glorious setting.
We go about our business. Noses pressed to real estate windows, we begin to hope that we’ve found what we want. The prices seem reasonable, the houses numerous. Nothing leaps out as The One, but we’re enchanted by the abundance of quaint little buildings pictured in the FOR SALE windows. We push open our first real estate agent’s door.
Several weeks and several visits to Maryborough later, we slump, downcast, in our dingy motel room.
The garden was too small … I say.
That one’s already reached its potential, no capital growth there … says Ian.
Not private enough …
Too run down …
Wrong sort of street …
Too renovated, too perfect, too finished …
Way too small …
Midges and mozzies …
The road was too busy …
I want to see the river …
We both know there’s no chance of that. Our first agent on our first day is abundantly clear on the point.
‘We’re looking for an old house overlooking the river,’ we explain. ‘Something with a decent size garden. Something we can renovate.’
There’s a brief moment of silence. Then, quietly, almost imperceptibly at first, his shoulders begin to shake. He starts to laugh. Little half suppressed sniggers, that build until he’s wiping his eyes. What’s so bleeding funny? I want to scream but, politely, patiently, we await an explanation.
‘If a place like that existed, it would never even make the listings,’ he gets out, still wiping the moisture from his eyes. ‘It’d be snapped up within fifteen minutes of the owner’s decision to sell.’
We visit Trevor, our only contact in Maryborough. Trevor is a talented artist who lived for years in Montville and who Ian and I had both known in our previous lives. He looks the archetypal artist: slightly lean and hungry, with dark hair cut in a style reminiscent of the age of flappers and the Charleston – one thick lock flopping over his brow.
Trevor is busy, surprised when we arrive, but far too well-mannered to tell us we are taking up his valuable time. We hadn’t wanted to impose, but desperation lowers our resolve.
His home is a gem of a Queenslander on the edge of town in a wide, leafy street near the river. It’s the sort of cottage I’ve yearned for and is filled with Trevor’s art and the art of his friends and contemporaries. Trevor is one of those rare artists who actually derives income from selling his work. He receives commissions and his work graces public places. Ian and I are vastly impressed by this.
It is late afternoon. A bottle of champagne seems appropriate. Trevor knows that Ian and I both love old houses, and he knows we have the enthusiasm to take on a challenge. We discuss our plight. We describe our dream of a fabulous old home on the banks of the river.
Ian and I have been extra keen on rivers since we visited Tasmania a year earlier. Salt, sand and surf don’t interest us at all. We love country: green, lush, treed country; dry, red, unbroken country. But most of all, since Tasmania, we love to watch the timeless progress of water passing through a landscape. We explain this, and we make clear our willingness, our eagerness even, to renovate. We go on to whinge and bemoan our disappointment, the dearth of options.
Trevor is patient and sympathetic. He listens and nods, listens and nods. Somewhere during the second glass of champagne, he says, ‘I’ve heard that Baddow House might be coming up for sale.’
Two pairs of ears prick up. We’ve never heard of Baddow House, but Trevor’s tone suggests this might be significant news.
‘You wouldn’t want to touch it, of course,’ he adds, and takes another sip of champagne.
We wait, agog.
‘It’s a real dump; an old, two-storey brick and render place on the edge of town. The outside walls are moving away from the inside walls.’
I’m not sure about Ian, but I’m still pretty interested.
‘I’ll take you down there if you like.’
Glasses are drained. It’s almost dusk so we won’t really be able to see much, but we’re more fired up and curious than we have been for weeks.
Two minutes from Trevor’s and the three of us pull up at the dead end of Queen Street. The house is huge, towering and black with sooty filth. It looks like the sort of grim building used in Victorian England to house orphans or lunatics. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s fantastic.
‘Are there people living in it?’ I ask, rubbing my fogged breath from the side window.
‘Oh yes, they’ve been there nearly twenty years.’
I’m disappointed. I want to snoop, but there are inhabitants.
Ian is more game. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he says, and is out of the car before his mouth shuts on the words.
I’m out too, tagging after him. ‘We can’t very well knock on the door,’ my cowardice sneaks in, ‘there’s no FOR SALE sign.’
‘We’ll walk round the perimeter,’ Ian says. ‘No harm in that.’
Trevor is eager too. With the advantage of being a local, he knows the lay of the land. ‘This way,’ he tells us. ‘We should be able to see the other side of the house from the river.’
We are racing the waning daylight, so scramble and slither down to the river flat as fast as we can. Weeds and vines cling and scratch at us. Mozzies descend in a starving black cloud. But eagerness numbs our senses to everything but the desire to get a better look at the house.
Between us and the house, the vegetation is impenetrable: heavily treed and overgrown with thick, snaking vines. We struggle to catch sight of the towering walls. I’m thinking the house is like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, trapped by time and the strangling forest.
We can see the roof and several chimneys, we can see dirty, crumbling masonry. Each tantalising glimpse sends our anticipation escalating.
From down by the river we are looking uphill at the house. It’s two very tall storeys, presenting soaring flat walls broken only by a couple of bay windows upstairs and down, but we see an arch here, a big old door there. Excitement makes us heedless of the thorny vines and prickly scrubby things that torment our legs.
As we walk the perimeter of the land, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to Trevor for bringing us here. I know that even if we never set foot in Maryborough again I won’t forget the experience because this place is one of a kind. It’s a mystery to me that the care of such a treasure could be abandoned to such an extent. The possibility that I’m looking at my future home tugs at me. A remote possibility of course, and peppered with untold obstacles, but it’s there nevertheless.
Trevor explains that we are standing on public land that surrounds the house. ‘This is an historic site,’ he tells us. ‘It’s where the first settlement of the village of Wide Bay, later called Maryborough, began. It’ll never be developed, never be built on.’
This is all great news. No neighbours. No potential for neighbours. Total privacy.
We are away from the river now, around the other side of the house. The Sleeping Beauty forest still lies between us and the g
arden, but there is a path of sorts, cut to wind its way through the historic parkland. A small, white cross is driven into the ground beside the path.
The sight of the cross brings us up short. A cross in the ground can only mean one thing, and I’m not sure that I want to hear it.
‘An old lady died here,’ Trevor explains. ‘She suffered from dementia and wandered off. She became disorientated, and was dead a week before they found her.’
An anonymous tragedy, but shocking nonetheless. I look at the house again, a little more thoughtful. The minutes tick by. I know very well that finding the cross is the sort of thing that could easily and permanently put me off a place. Who wants to think of the sadness of a lost and dying woman? And who wants to think of a badly decomposed body being discovered on the outskirts of their garden?
Ian is looking at me with these same questions in his eyes, but I know my enthusiasm about the house is too new and too great to be easily dented. All qualms are firmly pushed away. ‘I want to get inside,’ I say.
But it’s almost dark now, too late for agents, too late to hammer on strangers’ doors, however strong the inducement. Reluctantly we leave.
Back at Trevor’s, more champagne seems called for.
‘So,’ asks Ian, ‘you think they’d sell?’
Trevor shrugs. ‘It’s what I’ve heard. But remember what I told you about the walls.’
I sip my drink. I couldn’t care less what the walls are doing. ‘How are we going to get inside if it’s not listed for sale?’