by Roxane Dhand
Jane nodded sympathetically and poured out two cups of tea. She moved in a little closer and looped an arm around Maisie’s shoulders. ‘I think we white women all are, in some measure, which is why we must look to each other for comfort and support. Would you agree?’
Maisie glanced up at her friend. ‘Most definitely. Mrs Wallace made it very plain that I should integrate myself with all the ladies in the Bay as, without their support and acceptance, I would soon find myself very lonely indeed.’
‘That’s not quite what I meant.’
‘Is there something else I should be doing?’
Jane reassured her that, no, there was nothing else she should be doing.
‘What, then?’
‘Have you heard of Sarah Orne Jewett?’
Maisie started. ‘My goodness! Don’t tell me I forgot to visit someone?’
‘No. She was an American writer who died a few years ago, in 1909, I believe. She never married but enjoyed the constant companionship of another lady who was either divorced or widowed. I can’t remember which. They lived together, travelled together, did everything together, independent of the financial or emotional support of a man.’
Maisie opened her mouth to speak but nothing emerged.
Jane removed her arm and sipped her tea, and Duc continued to screech in the kitchen. He had moved on to swooping arpeggios now, and both Jane’s proposal and the musical gymnastics were beyond uncomfortable.
‘You are a dear friend – and I value that above anything I have in the Bay – but for better or worse, I am married to Maitland.’
Jane lifted a magazine off the table and flipped over a page. ‘Forgive me. I sometimes have these moments of weakness and cause a dear friend to suffer. Ill-timed, misjudged, inappropriate, whatever you want to call them.’
Maisie waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and then touched her friend’s arm, just for a second. ‘You said when we had lunch that you were going to tell me how you found yourself in the Bay after your husband left.’
Jane shut the magazine and smoothed her hand over the front cover. ‘It was a family conspiracy. Even if one is of age and perfectly in command of one’s mental facilities, a female who has been duped by a serial liar is trapped. Family imposes its will, and in this instance, its will was for me to keep an eye on my brother – Blair.’
Maisie’s eyebrows expanded a fraction. ‘Blair is your brother?’
‘My parents adopted Blair when it became clear that there would be no more children after me. They took him in when he was tiny. After my marital disgrace, my parents wanted me to move in with him and supervise Dorothea’s upbringing, but I knocked that idea on the head straightaway. We might have been raised in the same household but there is no mutual affection between Blair and me. I have never felt comfortable alone in his company, and – if I’m totally honest – there is something about him that makes me uneasy. I’ve never told my parents the reason I put my foot down so firmly, but they were adamant that I come to the Bay and they engineered the position with the McMahons. Blair had become their life, you see – the precious son, the heir apparent. It feels a little ironic sometimes, a woman being sent to babysit a man when we are dependent on them in so many other ways.’
Maisie put down her half-empty teacup. ‘I had no idea.’
Jane sighed. ‘There is no reason why you should have. Life is so often pretence, Maisie. We are chameleons, adopting a different skin to blend in with our changing backgrounds. We all do it, consciously or not, and I had a good teacher in my late husband. Look at Dorothea and the lengths she goes to in order to conceal her loneliness. Quite honestly, some people are just good at disguise. My father ran a Catholic school in Melbourne, so Blair was educated there, despite not actually being Catholic himself. There was something in his adoption papers, I believe, which withheld permission for him to be christened, but I don’t know the specifics. School is where he met Maitland, who was fully immersed in his religion. The two of them have been as thick as thieves ever since.’
Maisie heard the thrum of the cicadas through the lattice.
My husband never goes near a church!
‘I thought they met here in Buccaneer Bay.’
‘No. They’ve been inseparable since they were young. Blair was two academic years older than Maitland, and once he left school, Maitland was gone too, within weeks. He never finished. In fact, I recall that he was asked to leave, but I have no idea why. Anyhow, eventually Blair married a widow with a young child, Dorothea. Maitland moved here to the Bay, and a year or so later, as soon as Dorothea was legally his, Blair moved them here as well. His wife died not long after from blood poisoning, or so I believe the story goes.’
Maisie looked out at Maitland’s lawn. The scorched blades were grown over with glossy new grass, lush, thick and cropped short, past evidence covered up. ‘Do you doubt that is how his wife died?’
Jane stretched out her legs and cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know anything for certain. Blair worked for Dorothea’s father for a year or so – he was a wealthy and much-respected gem merchant in Melbourne – before he died of blood poisoning in strikingly similar circumstances to his wife. Dorothea, of course, knows none of this. She has no idea she is adopted or any of the rest. I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you either, except that Maitland’s past and now his present are interwoven with Blair’s in some inexplicable way and, as a dear friend,’ she gave weight to the word, ‘I worry for you.’
The house was too quiet. The Chinese scales had run their course. The sun had started to sink behind the lighthouse, throwing dappled shadows through the lattice. Jane looked at her watch. ‘The others will be here soon. If you wanted to know more you could always ask Maitland’s mother.’
Maisie scratched her cheek, trying to decide if Jane was pulling her leg. ‘Maitland hasn’t talked much about his family. He’s an only child and, as far as I know, he has no contact with his parents. I assumed they’d passed away.’
Jane nodded. ‘His father, yes. He died on the opal fields years back. But his mother is definitely still with us. I see advertisements from her company in the newspaper from time to time,’ she said. ‘Pammie Sinclair invented the Correct Posture Corset. She has made quite a name for herself and travels all over the world demonstrating her garment.’
Maisie held up her hands. ‘Please, Jane! I know nothing of Maitland’s background, let alone that he is Catholic, and now he has a mother who models corsets! Your parents were instrumental in sending you here, and so were mine. All I know about Maitland is that his father – who I now know to be definitely deceased – was my grandmother’s cousin. My parents received a letter from him – out of the blue, I think – but my mother is not Catholic. I have no idea why they were so set on him as the ideal husband and why I was sent out to him at just three weeks’ notice.’
Jane stood up from the tweed-covered chair and moved towards the green box on the coffee table. ‘That’s soapstone, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Maisie replied, disconcerted at the key change. ‘It’s Maitland’s.’
‘Definitely a man of secrets.’ Jane picked it up and stroked its smooth surface. ‘My parents have one. Have you worked out how to open it?’
‘I’ve barely noticed it.’
Jane shook the box and held it to her ear. ‘It’s difficult to know what’s within. That he has this at all is interesting, though, don’t you think?’
Maisie let her head tip back. ‘I thought it was a cigarette box,’ she said to the ceiling.
‘It’s an exercise in cunning and misplaced logic. There is no key, because there is no lock, and the hinges are not hinges. You have to think in a particular way. I never managed to open the one at home, but I do remember my father saying that guile and pressure would let you in.’ Jane returned the box to the table. ‘Shall we play detective and do some investigations of our own?’
Maisie rolled her head back down. ‘Why are you so set on this, Jane?’
Maisie looked into her earnest face. Jane might have private reasons for investigating Maitland, but she had a confession of her own to share. ‘I agree that he is not always the gentleman he would have us believe.’
Jane pursed her lips. ‘Has something happened?’
‘The night of the cyclone, Captain Mason had rather too much to drink and pressed his attentions on me.’
Jane laughed. ‘Yes, he’s well known for it. I think he even tried it on with the bishop’s wife on one occasion!’
‘Maitland said so at the time, but he was there, Jane. Maitland saw that I was upset and yet he did nothing to help me. I realise that I am newly married but – surely –’
‘Yes,’ Jane cut over her. ‘He should have intervened.’
Maisie twirled a strand of hair round her finger. ‘So, maybe I could approach the corset lady, if you can find me one of her advertisements, and delve into the family archives.’
‘Of course I’ll help you with the address. We’re bound to find it in one of your magazines. But …’ Jane sat down again and put her hands on Maisie’s arm. ‘I cannot pretend that it will be plain sailing, and you will have to be prepared, possibly, for some unpleasant truths. Mothers generally lose contact with their children for a reason.’
Maisie looked beyond the shutters at a black dot on the ocean. Everything that made the world matter to her was bobbing about in a pearling boat somewhere on that great expanse of sea. ‘We can’t risk Maitland or Blair finding out. Maitland has a dreadful temper and is capable of despicable violence. I have proof, also, that he is intercepting my private letters.’
‘Then we shall have to ensure that he no longer has access to your correspondence.’
Maisie turned her eyes on Jane. ‘How do we do that?’
‘All mail comes in and out of the Bay via the central post office in Asia Place. If you are prepared to ignore Doctor Shin’s advice, I suggest we go now and speak to the postmistress. If the others arrive while we are out, Duc can serenade them with one of his charming tunes.’
Mrs Brightlight lived up to her name. ‘Skulduggery,’ the carrot-haired postmistress decreed when Maisie explained the reason for their visit. Her solid stomach was perched on the edge of the counter, round and hard like a football, her blouse falling in soft ruffles around her neck. Maisie thought she looked like a turkey, all fattened up and ready for Christmas.
Mrs Brightlight tapped the counter with a pencil. ‘There have indeed been a number of letters for you, Mrs Sinclair, since you came to the Bay. The captain is very charming when he picks them up. We always chitchat about my children and the new one that’s on the way.’ She looked down at her stomach. ‘He’s very keen to have little ones of his own, he tells me. Devoted to his wife, that’s what I’ve always thought. He says he is sparing you the discomfort of the walk to the post office, you being new to the climate and all.’
‘Devoted to his own ends,’ Jane said, bleakly.
‘It’s wicked,’ Mrs Brightlight’s fleshy mouth tightened, ‘to cut a person off from their correspondence.’
‘And do you send on the letter I write each week to England?’
‘No, dear, I have never had one of those. Your correspondence amounts to the letters in and out to Gantry Creek and the magazines that come up from Port Fremantle. That’s all.’
Maisie gasped, hardly daring to believe her but knowing – deep down – what Mrs Brightlight said was true.
‘The Bay is a small community. Letters and parcels are what I know. Show me someone’s handwriting, I can tell you who wrote the label. Like a teacher knowing which little hand has scribbled naughty words on the desk.’ She tapped her pencil again on the counter, as if preparing to demonstrate her point.
Maisie was finding it difficult to understand. ‘Why is he doing that?’
Mrs Brightlight talked on. ‘Some people are plain dishonest. I could tell you a tale or two about dishonesty in this town.’
Maisie turned to go. That she had been tricked by Maitland was more than enough. For now. ‘I will look forward to and value another conversation with you but it will have to wait for another time, Mrs Brightlight, when I am not quite so pressed. In future, though, please be quite clear: you are not to give my husband any parcel, package or letter connected with me, even if he brings you flowers.’
The postmistress leaned heavily on her hand and snapped the tip off her pencil. ‘There will be no further cooperation from me,’ she said. ‘Even if he brings me every single bloom from Port Fremantle.’
CHAPTER 17
MAITLAND WAS IN HIS office. With the Wet now decidedly over, the Bay was returning to normal. The only real thorn in his side was Maisie. Having her in the house was like living with a yapping dog, constantly underfoot and nipping at his heels. Duc’s goat this and ice boy that. Nag, nag, nag. Getting her out running the slop chest had been a stroke of genius, though. The weekends were once again his own. Duc was whining less too, and the food had improved.
All told, he was in a very good mood. His white suits went to the laundry in Singapore more or less every fortnight on the Blue Funnel steamship. A dozen of them could be starched and laundered for ten shillings. It was cheaper to use the Singapore cleaners, he told Maisie when she’d badgered him, and far more reliable to have them washed and pressed two thousand miles away than a couple of miles up the road in Asia Place.
He smiled to himself about the real reason – the little extra curricular import–export business he had going on the side, bringing in opium concealed within the lid of the laundry chest. The previous afternoon, he’d picked out the sticky lumps, which he would now sell on to the divers at five-hundred per cent profit. I am a bloody genius, he laughed to himself. Even bloody Blair hasn’t thought of this!
A scraping noise interrupted his thoughts. The Malay packing-shed boy peered round the door and whispered, ‘Tuan, one of crew. Him pinch pearl.’
Maitland slapped his pen on the desk. ‘My crew?’
‘No him’s crew. Tuan mayor.’
Maitland sat up in his chair. Someone had snitched one of Blair’s pearls? ‘And where is it now?’
The Malay scratched his bare stomach. ‘I no know. But Java Boy Pete know. He say tell you. Maybe you like buy?’
Maitland’s eyes narrowed. ‘How big is this snide?’
‘Him big fella, forty- to fifty-grain stringer, no flaws.’
‘Did Java Boy Pete say where to meet him?’
The teak face relaxed. He had the answer to this question. ‘Oh, him say at Seafarer’s when you done finish here.’
Despite appearances, Maitland was short of ready cash. He had expanded his business interests as far as he could with bank loans, but his debts to the Chinese ship-chandlers had grown heavy. His luggers were all mortgaged to the hilt and one had just been smashed in the blow. The new schooner had yet to be paid for. He’d cashed in Maisie’s dowry but the money he was wringing from her father was nowhere near enough. He should have asked for more; that was a bloody error of judgement.
Fifty-grain stringer? A sodding fortune if it was true. He’d sell it on, settle his debts and get out of the pearling game. He was sick of the stench of rotting oysters and of being kept dangling at the Pearlers’ Association. There was a debate that afternoon but he thought he’d give it a miss. Blair said that war was brewing in Europe, and they should get into wool. Army uniforms was where the real money would be made. They were talking about going into it together.
The Seafarer’s Rest Hotel was a rambling single-storey construction that offered ‘tiered’ accommodation to its multinational clientele. Maitland had a large interest in the property and had dumped the English diver and his tender in single rooms along
one side of the building. A picket fence marked off a plot of land to the right side, which housed the stables, wash blocks and toilets. The left-hand yard was swept clean. The divide was intentional: whites on the left, coloureds on the right, and strictly no stepping over the line.
Java Boy Pete was lodged on the right-hand side beyond the sanitation block, in a filthy smoke-blackened square at the back of the hotel. The narrow outbuilding was enclosed in a concrete yard. It was stiflingly hot, windowless and smelled of sweat.
Maitland banged the door with the toe of his boot. ‘You in there, Java?’
There was no answer. Maitland prepared to kick again, the inside edge of his foot ready to stave in the door.
‘Gud evening, Tuan Sinclair.’ Java Boy Pete sidled up behind him barefoot, bare-chested and saronged.
Maitland pivoted on his heel and looked at the Javanese as if he were an exhibit in a jar. ‘You Pete?’
The young boy nodded. ‘You got money in pockit, Tuan?’
Maitland lifted his eyebrows to his hairline.
‘You buy pearl? Big as a whale.’ The boy made an elaborate gesture with his arms. ‘Mebbe thousand pounds? Then you sell like quick sticks for double?’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘No trouble ’bout that. Everyone in the Bay buy snide. I don’t blab to no-one. You want see?’
The swarthy, indentured Pete was as slippery as a snake and potentially ten times as dangerous. Maitland needed time to think. The pearl masters sent their divers to the depths to haul up pearl shell. That was the day-to-day business, their bread-and-butter money. But from time to time, once in every ten thousand shells, a magnificent pearl would be found. Divers and crew were relied upon to be honest and set this bounty aside for their employers. Some did, but the desperate majority did not, and supplied the snide market with pearls that were filched from their bosses and sold on to known snide buyers or anyone prepared to resell them at a profit. Maitland knew that his own shell-opener, Sid, was a thieving crow who sold his best pearls out at sea. Likewise, someone had shanghaied this ‘beaut’ from Blair. But it could be the perfect solution to get him out of the Bay.