It was a speech like many others he had made before, but today it had an added verve. Elizabeth was in the parliamentary chamber, the first time she had ever seen him here. Not since the day when he had openly attacked his former leader, George Reid, pillorying him as ‘Yes-No Reid’, a fraud who opposed Federation while claiming to support it, had he shown such zest and energy. On that occasion William had demolished the paunchy Premier and severed his links with the Free Trade group, Reid had lost office soon afterwards, and there were many who claimed the speech had accelerated his downfall. Mount joy was a far easier target.
‘If the Gentleman — and I use the word with extreme caution — chooses to align himself with the Honourable Mr “Yes-No” Reid and other dullards and dinosaurs who would like to emulate King Canute and hold back the tide, I suggest this House repair to the nearest beach and let the waves of history wash them into obscurity.’ He looked at the furious face of James North; they were now on opposite sides and no longer associated. ‘I invite you others, timid or dominated, who would have us remain an imperial realm of Mother England, to join them. Command the flood of public opinion to subside. Order it to ebb, to recede, to stop,’ he taunted. ‘But beware. This is a surging current, a stream of belief in favour of change for the future. Ignore it and it may drown you.’
He resumed his seat. In the public gallery, Elizabeth looked down and caught her father’s eye. She smiled, enormously proud of him, impressed by his wit and his passionate support for Federation. She noticed a well-dressed, attractive woman opposite who was also smiling in approval. Their glances met.
Hannah looked away, to avoid drawing attention to herself. It was the first time she had actually seen Elizabeth. A photograph William had shown her of a sixteen-year-old in school uniform had barely done her justice. What a truly beautiful girl she is, Hannah thought. I never realised quite how lovely.
‘I really enjoyed it,’ Elizabeth said the following morning. ‘So did everyone else.’
She and her father were having morning tea in the study. The children were outside, playing near Edith in her wheelchair. ‘You must come and watch again,’ William said.
‘If there’s time, Papa,’ Elizabeth reminded him.
His heart sank as she said it. It was the third mention of her return to South Australia in as many days.
‘You’ve only been here two months,’ he said carefully. ‘Your mother really loves those children. It’s made such a difference to her.’
Elizabeth nodded. She knew Edith’s entire day was devoted to them, in particular to Heinrich, displaying an affection for him she had never been able to show her own daughter. It was a wry thought.
‘I’ve never seen her so happy,’ William continued, as if he had guessed what was in her mind. ‘Nor have I, Papa.’
‘Then you can’t be thinking of leaving us just yet.’
The prospect of it filled him with dismay. He had not realised how a house could be transformed, the way this gothic Victorian relic had been transformed by the presence of his daughter and the two boys. The baby, Maria, he discounted; she was a pretty little thing, but it was the boys who made the difference. Their childish laughter and the clatter of their feet up and down the stairs had caused concerned frowns among the staff, but when Mrs Forbes had scolded them for their high spirits, Edith had promptly rebuked her, and made it clear they were to have free rein without restrictions. It was an extraordinary volte-face for Edith, and because of it the house was filled with happy juvenile voices, and was alive the way it had never been in the past, not even when Elizabeth herself was growing up here, and certainly not in the cold unforgiving years since her departure.
William watched his daughter sipping her tea, her long skirt and white linen shirt-waisted blouse, with her fair hair tied back, making her look absurdly young. Elizabeth could have been home from school; it was scarcely credible she was the mother of the two boisterous young rascals turning somersaults outside in the garden, and the third child asleep in the pram. He would give anything to keep them all here. It was one of the reasons why he had not felt able to tell her the truth about Edith.
For the fall that crippled her had not been an accident. Edith had tried to kill herself.
It had been Forbes at the door of the house in Paddington, who had stumbled an apology to Hannah, and managed to convey that he was looking for Mr Patterson, because there had been a dreadful accident.
He did his best to be circumspect by saying that he may have come to the wrong house, but if she should know — or had any means of conveying the news — would she please do so. Hannah simply ran upstairs and called him, and ten minutes later he was at home, watching the attendants bringing Edith’s crumpled body on a stretcher and carefully placing it in the back of the horse-drawn ambulance.
Doctor Fairfax was already there. Mrs Forbes had summoned him. Charles Fairfax was a prominent physician, and a business colleague. They had mutual dealings in property, but on this occasion he had been coldly clinical and brusque.
‘They’ll take her to Sydney General. I’ll let you know when there’s any news.’
‘What chance has she got?’
‘Not much. Half the bones in her body are broken.’
William had shuddered, as he looked up towards the balcony of her room, then at the spot where she had landed. It was a pile of stones the gardeners had left there to construct a rockery.
‘How could she have fallen?’
‘Who said she fell?’ Fairfax replied quietly. They were alone, out of earshot of the servants.
‘But Forbes said it was an accident.’
‘Let’s talk about this later, William. In the meantime, I hope your staff are loyal. I told them what I’ll tell the hospital, and the press if necessary, that in my opinion Edith suffered a dizzy spell and lost her balance. She consulted me recently, to complain of attacks of dizziness.’
‘Did she?’ William had asked, grasping at this straw.
‘No,’ was the doctor’s curt answer.
That night, in the privacy of his rooms, Charles Fairfax was uncompromisingly blunt.
‘We’ve done all we can. She may recover consciousness, but at this stage no one can say.’
‘Do everything possible, Charles. No expense spared.’
‘That’s hardly the point. If she has no will to live, then she’ll certainly die. It’s not the first time she’s tried to kill herself.’ William stared at him blankly.
‘Not the first time?’
‘She tried to take an overdose of laudanum some months ago.’
‘Where did she get the laudanum?’
‘I prescribed it for her. She had a kidney complaint. When I found out what she’d done, fortunately in time to take measures, I then replaced it with a less dangerous drug.’
‘I didn’t even know she had a kidney complaint,’ William said, feeling shocked and bewildered.
‘Of course you didn’t.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this attempt?’
‘She begged me not to.’
‘But, Charles, surely I had a right to know.’
‘Edith was my patient,’ Fairfax said. ‘I had to take her wishes into account.’
‘Why wouldn’t she allow me to be told?’
‘She’s afraid of you, William.’ Fairfax was blunt, choosing his words without discretion. ‘She’s always been afraid. She was frightened you might use the information to get her committed.’
‘Good God. Jesus Christ Almighty!’
He was aghast. The idea made him want to be physically ill. No matter how joyless their marriage had become, she surely couldn’t have imagined him capable of such an act.
‘If she could believe that, she must think I’m a monster.’ Fairfax could see his distress, and became more sensitive. ‘She’s been very disturbed. Losing Elizabeth. Your marriage, well, I don’t have to tell you. She hasn’t been entirely rational.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ was all he could mutter.<
br />
He was terribly shaken. Lying close to death in hospital, Edith had a far greater impact on him than ever in their life together. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. And an impending concern.
‘It’ll get out,’ William said with certainty. ‘These things always do.’
The House had been sympathetic about the accident.
‘We express our deep sympathy to this most gracious lady,’ said the Speaker of the Assembly, who had never met her.
‘A tragic blow,’ the new Premier Sir William Lyne was reported saying in the Sydney Morning Herald. He took the opportunity to commend his Honourable friend Mr Patterson as a man of courage and principle, which was to be expected, since his Honourable friend’s ambush of George Reid had helped him gain the leadership.
In other quarters there were different murmurs. Some said it was known William had been consistently unfaithful to his wife for years, and had a mistress; there was even, in certain circles, a whisper that the fall had not been accidental. Some in Parliament who had felt the lash of his tongue subscribed to this rumour. He was aware of gossip and speculative glances.
Through all this, Dr Fairfax remained stalwart.
‘A dizzy spell,’ he told all and sundry, and persisted with it when Edith returned home in a wheelchair.
William often wondered when he would pay for the favour the doctor had done him. In his world, no such considerations were granted without expectations in return. But in this he was apparently mistaken. Fairfax had not raised the matter since, and apart from William offering him occasional stock market tips, and asking him to make one visit to the house in Paddington when Hannah was indisposed with a chill, they rarely met now.
Hannah was the only other person who knew the truth.
He had not intended to confide in anyone, but found it impossible to bear the burden alone. He was racked with guilt and torment at causing Edith such acute unhappiness. The senseless violence of her act had brought a deep remorse. Often at night, unable to sleep, he bedevilled himself with her state of mind, her fear of him, unable to shut out the vivid images of her climbing over the iron rail of the balcony to hurl herself into oblivion.
Telling Hannah had been a necessary relief, but it had been a mistake. It had only transferred the guilt.
‘I feel sick about it,’ Hannah had said. ‘I’m to blame.’
‘Don’t say that,’ William insisted. ‘Stop it. I won’t have you say that.’ He came and put his arms around her. ‘I’m to blame, not you. Never say that again.’
‘But — what if she knew about us?’
‘She didn’t know. She has no idea. And our marriage was over long ago, before you and I ever met. Don’t you ever say or think that again, do you hear me?’
For a time he could not allay her feeling of responsibility; her own remorse was like a barrier between them, and he began to fear he might lose her. He spent every possible moment he could with her; it became imperative to make her realise she was blameless. She was the one real constant in his life. The thought of being without her was not something he could contemplate.
Since Elizabeth’s arrival he had seen her less, reverting to his former arrangement of afternoon visits. Hannah had insisted on this. He needed time with his daughter and grandchildren, and the visit should not be marred by any hint of another woman in his life.
‘Papa?’
‘Mmm,’ he said, disturbed from his reverie.
‘Mrs Forbes said there’s a telephone call for you.’
He rose reluctantly, and went into the hall to answer it. He had been persuaded to install the instrument, now so many business people in the city were subscribers, but did not like it. He never felt comfortable speaking to someone, without being able to see their face.
‘It’s Dr Fairfax,’ Mrs Forbes said. He picked up the pedestal.
‘Charles,’ he said loudly into the mouthpiece, and in the living room Elizabeth looked up from her newspaper, amused by his well-known antipathy towards the invention. She went back to reading the disturbing news about Australian casualties in the Boer War, and on the opposite page the alarming resurgence of bubonic plague in many inner areas of Sydney.
‘What is it?’
William was guarded, concerned the doctor should choose to telephone him. He had not been entirely at ease with him, ever since Edith’s fall.
‘I think we should meet.’
‘When?’
‘Today. As soon as possible.’
‘I’m due at the House later,’ William said, and began to have an anxious feeling when he heard the other’s reply.
‘I wouldn’t go there. Not today. Most certainly not until we’ve met.’
‘Do you mind telling me why?’
‘I’d rather not,’ the doctor answered. ‘Not on this machine. I’ll talk to you in person.’
‘Very well. I’ll expect you here.’
‘No. Not your home or mine.’
‘Then where?’ He was certainly apprehensive now. Fairfax was not the kind of man to behave like this. ‘Where shall we meet?’
‘Somewhere discreet. I recall a house in Paddington, where I attended a person of your acquaintance. Could we meet there?’
‘I daresay,’ William replied. ‘How soon?’
‘An hour,’ the doctor said, and hung up.
The rats had been multiplying and running amok all summer. They proliferated in the steep sandstone streets between the western quay and the wharves of Darling Harbour; they bred in the primitive and unsanitary backyard toilets; they feasted on food in open butchers’ yards and ran unchecked in the fish and fruit markets. They prospered in the filth and garbage of the city hovels, formed colonies in the burgeoning warehouses of Sussex Street, and spread southward into the haphazard chaos of Campbell and Wexford Streets, and the crowded slum neighbourhoods huddled around the Belmore markets.
A ship docked — it could have been from South China or a Pacific island — and the rats that came ashore brought with them an epidemic that fed on the stench of summer drains, creating terror and contaminating the city.
Bubonic plague was first identified in China in 1893. It was reported in Mauritius and Noumea in 1899, and reached Sydney early in 1900. The first victim, an inhabitant of Ferry Street, died in January. His immediate neighbours were quarantined, but the disease spread and rampaged along the waterfront, and there was panic. Within months over three hundred people caught the disease; more than a hundred died. Many residents fled their homes, and took trains to the remote but safer Blue Mountains. The government, accused of apathy and bungling, set up barricaded areas where the plague was rife, and began lime-washing the festering streets. In the worst affected localities, buildings were burnt or demolished. A committee charged with the administration of Public Health appointed George McCredie, an engineer, and the Chief Medical Officer, Ashburton Thompson, to stamp out the epidemic.
Rat catchers were hired, and hundreds of unemployed men clamoured for the jobs. Rats by the thousand were caught and burnt, the daily newspapers recording the numbers. Fearing the main enemy was sewage and silt, this was dredged from dock areas, while a massive amount of garbage was collected and dumped far out to sea. Despite these measures bubonic plague remained, and although the first wave of hysteria subsided with the onset of winter, public panic was never more than a headline away.
William had reluctantly contemplated writing to Elizabeth to suggest she delay her visit, but a lull in the outbreak made him gratefully reconsider. By then, all infected areas had been identified and isolated, and when she arrived in Sydney it seemed the plague was virtually over. Nevertheless, there were still occasional reported cases, and McCredie’s rat catchers continued to patrol like vigilantes. For this reason, William made certain Elizabeth and the children went nowhere near the danger spots, the fetid and barricaded streets of the Rocks and the inner regions of the city. Their outings were strictly confined to the open spaces of Centennial Park or the shores of the harbour.
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nbsp; It had been barely a week ago that the picture had radically changed. With unseasonably warm, almost heat-wave conditions, there was a sudden massive increase of admissions to hospitals. Each day the number of reported victims rose steeply; the death toll climbed causing renewed alarm. This apprehension increased as the infected area widened to the suburbs. There were cases reported in Waterloo and Glebe; more ominously, some in Paddington and Waverley. With the approach of a new summer, speculation grew that the plague might rage unchecked for months to come, and many more areas would have to be evacuated.
BUBONIC PLAGUE. FURTHER OUTBREAKS FEARED was the major morning headline in the Sydney Morning Herald, which sounded an alarm in a newspaper otherwise noted for its small story headings and its sobriety. This oldest and most respected of the state’s dailies chose to print a bizarre advertisement, by which time the public mood verged on a consternation that was akin to hysteria.
GRIM BUBONIC PLAGUE
THE SCOURGE OF THE EAST.
Grim bubonic plague has marched with stealthy strides to these shores. The foe is at the door.
Public sanitary vigilance is imperative. Let the sewers be flushed, and every form of impurity swept away. Let the health of the community be maintained to the highest degree; but in addition let every individual be on the alert. The human body has the most perfect system of sewerage, defying the utmost art of man to rival.
A wise Creator has provided means for the eradication of all impure materials from the human body. DR MORSE’S INDIAN ROOT PILLS have such a perfect combination of the best and most energetic remedies provided by a beneficent providence for the true purpose of cleansing the whole system, ‘flushing the sewers’, rousing up the liver, kidneys, and the whole intestinal tract to their proper functions, that it is with the utmost confidence we recommend them to the public as a preventative of the fearful ravages of that dread disease — BUBONIC PLAGUE.
DR MORSE’S INDIAN ROOT PILLS
They stand alone as the Perfect Blood Purifier!
A Bitter Harvest Page 13