Moth to the Flame

by Joy Dettman

  That was the day Lorna had decided to get Jim’s boy.

  And she’d got him. She’d orchestrated their escape from Woody Creek, had stood at her father’s side when the neglect charges were made. He’d been reliant on her in the city. She’d driven him to his city solicitor’s office week after week during the legitimising of James’s birth. She’d driven him there when the new will disposing of the Hooper fortune was to be signed.

  With the aid of a steaming kettle, she and Margaret had opened it, and the first name they’d seen was Ian Hooper’s. Vern had named him guardian of boy and estate until the before-mentioned James Morrison Hooper reaches his majority. Should the said child predecease his cousin, my nephew, Ian Howard Hooper . . .

  Should the boy predecease his halfwit cousin, the halfwit would inherit Lorna, Margaret and the estate. Children died every day! She had achieved nothing. And it was not to be tolerated.

  ‘After all we’ve done for him, Margaret.’

  ‘How could he, Lorna?’

  ‘How dare he, Margaret?’

  Since ’41, Vern had been living on borrowed time. By 1951, he was failing daily — and pining for Woody Creek, according to Margaret.

  When Lorna learned of the passing of the senior Mick Boyle, a neighbour for thirty years, she’d offered to drive the car to Woody Creek and leave Vern for a month in the care of the farm manager and his wife. She’d taken the train home. Control of Vern’s estate her objective, she’d come to the conclusion that whoever controlled Jim’s boy would control the estate, and in order to legally adopt her nephew, she would require a husband — and had no time to waste in finding one.

  An envelope addressed to her maternal uncle, Henry Langdon, of Thames Ditton, England, and Lorna put pen to paper.

  My dear Uncle Henry,

  I hope this letter finds you and Aunt Leticia in good health, as it leaves me. I cannot say the same of my father. Being confident in the knowledge that the following will be seen by your own eyes only, I now agree with statements made by you during my sojourn in Thames Ditton that it would be in my better interests if I were to wed. Thus, I make this appeal to you, my only male relative, to choose for me an Englishman of refinement and good breeding, view matrimony.

  Taking into consideration my father’s age and current health issues, this request should be met at your earliest convenience. Your loving niece, Lorna Hooper

  Time being at a premium, Lorna was waiting at the post office at nine, where the letter was adorned with airmail stickers. It flew away on a hot summer’s day to land in England’s chilly winter.

  Henry Langdon had raised no offspring to inherit his fifteenth-century manor house and grounds. Lorna, the only daughter of his older sister, was his closest blood relative. Aware of her age, as desperate as Vern for an heir, he wasted no time in procuring her a mate.

  On a pleasant morning in late March of ’51, Lorna waited at the dock to meet her prospective husband. Her mail-order mate was not all Lorna had been hoping for. He measured all of five foot five and a half when shod — in shoes the size of her nephew’s. Cherubic was the word that sprang to the mind of most when first their eyes fell on little Bernard. Pink skin, a bald pate, a circle of red-gold fuzz at ear level, and eyes that, when he finally dared to lift them, revealed themselves to be . . . golden.

  ‘A rough crossing?’ Lorna finally broke her clamped-lipped silence.

  Not so rough as the landing. Bernard did not find his voice until they were seated in a restaurant, at which time Lorna decided he was an over-educated, pint-sized pommy bore.

  Shopping via mail order is never as satisfactory as personal shopping; Lorna had run up against the same problem when ordering her size eleven shoes from a catalogue. However, the time spent in composing acidic letters and the posting back of unsatisfactory merchandise was not always worth the effort expended. She decided to don these shoes as soon as possible and break them in to her liking.

  *

  A man with no common sense requires a good education; a man of refined tastes with no money to support them requires a rich wife. When the proposition had been put to Bernard, he’d accepted gladly. A long sea voyage could only add to life’s experiences, and at the end of the trip . . . well, if he did not feel some attraction to his intended, there was always the return voyage to dear old England.

  He had not correctly interpreted the delight in Henry Langdon’s eye when he’d presented him with a one-way ticket to the colonies. Bernard saw the dazzling blue of Australia’s sky, felt the warmth of the land and he desired it. He looked at the skyscraper lines of his intended and desired only a fast boat home.

  Oddly enough, neither Henry, nor Leticia, Bernard’s sister, replied to the desperate telegram sent five minutes after Lorna Hooper drove away.

  THE INTENDED IS UNTENABLE STOP PLEASE SEND FARE STOP

  Nor did they reply to his second telegram, sent the following day: PLEASE WIRE FARE STOP INTOLERABLE SITUATION HERE STOP MUST RETURN IMMEDIATELY STOP

  A five-page pleading letter also remained unanswered.

  By April, his cash reserves dwindling, Bernard was forced to downgrade his accommodation. He took a small room in a fourth-rate hotel, where the food was poor and the company worse, and in its bleak surrounds he began slipping into depression. He lost track of time, of dates, of appointments with his intended. Failed to meet her at theatres, arrived late at restaurants.

  As he had minimal access to the hotel telephone, his intended offered her home number so he might call each morning at ten to verify the place and time of their assignations. He placed a call to her residence at ten one April morning. The gentle voice of an unknown party convinced him he had dialled a wrong number — until the acerbic tones of his intended came down the line, demanding privacy before giving him instructions on trams, church, and the time of their appointment with the parson who would seal his fate.

  He caught the right tram, but, taken by a plump little personage with platinum hair, he missed his stop. The wee woman got off at the next stop, Bernard behind her. She glanced at him. He glanced at her astonishing breasts.

  ‘I am, I fear, lost,’ he said. ‘I am to meet . . . an acquaintance at . . .’ he named the church.

  The dear wee thing smiled, her chubby little face dimpling so prettily. She directed him with a lifted arm, and how delightful that plump little arm after his intended’s black-clad tentacles; how delicate that hand after the hawk’s talons.

  ‘It’s quite a short walk. You will see the spire clearly from the next street,’ she said.

  With no excuse to dally longer, Bernard continued on his way, turning though for one final glance, as did she; then another glance, as did she, before she disappeared into a side street like a plump sprite into a glade of greenery.

  He found the church, late, where he suffered the barbs of his intended’s tongue and the parson’s badly concealed snigger.

  Later, depression engulfing him, he sat in his third-floor room staring at a page of script his intended had ordered him to copy in his own hand and to have in the mail before noon. She’d supplied a sheet of writing paper and a stamped envelope addressed to Mr Vernon Hooper. He was an artist, but today his hand was too unsteady to take up a pen. For two hours he’d sat sweating over the formal request for her hand in marriage — and much more. And he could not do it. He would not wed her.

  He slid her original into the envelope, put it into his breast pocket and considered the long jump to the pavement. The distance may be enough. His intended’s letter would make a fair enough suicide note — to those who knew her. Although a broken leg or back would make him a sitting duck . . .

  He left the hotel and took a tram to St Kilda beach, which offered a less painful means to end his sorrows. The southern oceans were known to be full of man-eating sharks. Was being eaten alive by one man-eater worse than another?

  The day was warm. The ocean looked cold.

  Perhaps he might throw himself on her mercy, explain his desire . .
. his lack of desire . . . suggest they delay the wedding . . . or wed in England. Once on home soil, he might . . .

  His watch, rarely wound, told him it was near one. Lorna was to collect him from his hotel at two.

  A godly man, Bernard. Needing guidance, he caught a tram to the city and a second back to the street where the sniggering parson’s church stood. The man-eater lived nearby, but if she was prowling the waters near his hotel, her home waters may offer sanctuary.

  Numbers never his forte, he left the tram at the wrong stop, overshooting his objective. Nothing for it but to follow the tram-lines back. He’d crossed over two streets and was approaching a third when he saw his intended’s black vehicle make a right-hand turn out of a green glade and into the path of an oncoming tram. He froze, expected salvation with no need of the sniggering parson. She evaded the tram and drove on, and he scuttled towards that greenery now turning gold. Surely not her habitat? He’d visualised black bitumen and concrete, a street bereft of trees. He’d seen red, hard-faced houses standing behind hard brick fences. Instead, English trees shaded green lawns, aging houses sheltered behind flowering shrubs. A pretty street.

  He was stooping to gather a leaf touched by the artistry of autumn when he saw the wee one, locked away from him behind tall metal gates. Like a sinner locked out of paradise, he stood beside a tree from where he might watch her gather a bouquet of flowers.

  He stood too long. She turned.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, approaching the gate and peering between the bars. ‘I thought it was you. Are you lost again?’

  Her sweet face dimpled at him; his own dimpled back.

  ‘I am seriously astray, I fear,’ he said.

  ‘You look all hot and bothered.’

  Perhaps not hot, but surely bothered. She asked if she might fetch him a glass of water. And thus, Bernard entered in through the gates of paradise to sit in a grape-vine-sheltered arbour where the wee one brought him cool water. And sat with him.

  He spoke of the street, of the English trees. He told her he’d left those same trees naked in dear old England. She asked what had brought him to Australian shores. He told her of a relative who may or may not reside in this very street. She commented on a shrinking world.

  Perhaps he took too long in emptying his glass. She told him her father had eaten early and would be looking for his afternoon tea, and excused herself to attend to him. He had been dismissed, but he sat on, watching the delicious rounds of her buttocks disappear indoors. Certainly, he should leave, but having found sanctuary, he could not force his legs to stand.

  And perhaps she was pleased he had not. She returned to the arbour with a tea tray, two cups, two slices of cream sponge.

  ‘You must give my salutations to your cook,’ he said.

  ‘It’s quite some time since we’ve had a cook,’ she said.

  Margaret watched her little redheaded visitor make love to her sponge with his mouth, her large eyes moistened at his obvious appreciation of her labour. He looked up and caught her eye. She blinked, three times, rapidly, then rose to fetch him another slice.

  When she returned, he spoke of his sister’s cook, with the family for thirty years; and she spoke of her childhood, of her mother who had made similarly light sponges. And when his plate was empty, she almost reached out to wipe a dab of cream from his chin. Of course, she didn’t. A gesture only towards her own chin, a smile, and he dimpled and wiped the cream away.

  He sat for half an hour. They exchanged Christian names. He sat for an hour and she asked for how long he would remain in Australia.

  He told her he had come to attend his distant relative’s wedding. She said she loved weddings, and asked if it was to be at the church he’d been looking for that day. He admitted it was to have been there; however, he feared the groom had absconded. She told him of her girlhood friend, Sissy, who had been left, virtually, at the altar, and her protruding eyes moistened at the distant memory.

  Margaret knew few of her neighbours, other than those with sons her nephew’s age. She asked the family name of the relative.

  ‘Hooper,’ he said.

  ‘Another Hooper? Would you know the street number?’

  Bernard had no memory for numbers. He’d had on ongoing battle with adding, dividing, balancing numbers for most of his life. But the envelope he had not posted, the letter he had not copied, was on his person. He removed it and glanced at the street number written there. Thirty-three. For some time, his eye had been drawn to two matching brass threes screwed to the brick supports of a front porch, aware, on some level, that they meant something. Aghast, he sprang to his feet. He’d been drinking tea in the grey shark’s home waters, and that shark, not finding her sprat where it was meant to be, would return.

  Margaret walked with him to the gate where she offered her hand. He could not deny himself one touch of her softness. The small hand between his, he looked into blue eyes a sprat may drown in.

  ‘You are raising your nephew, sweet Maggie?’ he asked.

  She frowned, but didn’t deny his words.

  ‘Be warned,’ he said. ‘She has designs on him.’

  ‘Perhaps you should sit a while longer. You don’t look at all well.’

  ‘Lorna,’ he said. ‘She has designs on your nephew.’

  ‘Your colour is concerning me, Bernard.’

  ‘How sweet is the voice of pity.’ He released her hand. ‘The nephew holds the key to the family’s fortune. Be warned, sweet Maggie.’

  And he got away, but not with his envelope. Whether by design or accident, it fell to the footpath to lie beside the russet of an autumn leaf.

  Margaret picked it up. She recognised Lorna’s distinctive black copperplate script. The envelope was not sealed. Of course she helped herself to its contents — and found a page of Lorna’s personalised writing paper addressed to Mr Vernon Hooper.

  It was a request for Lorna’s hand in marriage; a request that a new will be drawn up before the wedding day; a request that he, Bernard, and his wife be allowed to provide a normal family environment for Vern’s grandson, that the before-mentioned grandson would retain the Hooper name after the adoption.

  The Balwyn house will become the sole property of . . . Margaret read.

  The letter also assured Vern that his younger daughter would be given a home for life.

  ‘As the kitchen maid!’ Margaret said. ‘Bernard! Bernard!’

  Margaret was not dressed for the street. She was wearing a house frock, house shoes, no hat or gloves, but she was on the street and running.

  ‘Bernard!’ He’d reached the corner. ‘Bernard!’

  He turned.

  She was pink-faced and quite out of breath when she caught him, literally caught him, took his arm and swung him around to face her. ‘This must be discussed.’

  He allowed her to lead him to a corner café, to a battered table in the corner, where, her back to the wall, she ordered tea for two and two vanilla slices, then realised she had no money.

  ‘You’ll have to pay, Bernard . . .’

  ‘For my last supper, eaten in the company of an angel, I will pay willingly, sweet Maggie,’ he said.

  The family dormouse, Margaret, the family maid. As a girl she had dreamt a girl’s romantic dreams of love; had, on two brief occasions, convinced herself she’d found love, but never had a man named her angel. Never in her forty years of life had she been in the company of a man or woman who had not immediately taken the dominant role. And such a sweet little man, such a gentle soul — caught up in Lorna’s infamy.

  Margaret’s one goal in life had been to become a mother to her darling boy. Lorna would provide a normal family environment — God save a street urchin from that!

  And God save Margaret. If not this little man, Lorna would find another willing to do her bidding. Unless . . .

  Here, on the table, were explicit instructions on how Margaret might achieve her heart’s desire. Could she? Dare she?

  The tea and vanilla slic
es arrived before she spoke again. Bernard had taken a small bite.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to put this . . .’ He waited. ‘If you came all the way from England to . . . I mean, you did come here to marry . . . My goodness.’

  She looked down at her plate, picked up the vanilla slice and bit, needing to fill her mouth. Barely tasted it, washed it down with tea and wiped her lips.

  ‘I don’t know why you’d agree to such a thing, but if you were . . . were agreeable to . . . to changing horses mid-race . . . I mean, you and I could . . . We have her letter to follow.’

  ‘And the gates of paradise shall swing wide to me, my sweet, sweet Maggie.’

  And in that dingy little corner café, Bernard made a knee and kissed her hand.

  All is fair in love and war and the inheritance of property — not that Margaret was interested in the property. She wanted to be a mother. And, when all was said and done, she wouldn’t be the first in the world to steal her sister’s intended.

  *

  At three thirty, the little couple collected James from school and rode a tram to the local library, where they were offered pen and ink. While James browsed amongst the books, Bernard made a copy of Lorna’s letter, with a few minor variances. Where the original said Lorna, he wrote Margaret. Lorna’s wording relating to the adoption of James could not be improved on, nor could the paragraph regarding the Balwyn house becoming the sole property of Margaret, nor the final paragraph, other than the alteration of one sister’s name for the other:

  As it is unlikely that Lorna will appreciate her sister’s altered situation, thus, until the arrangements have been finalised, it is imperative that any meeting between us should remain confidential, and be arranged at my hotel at your earliest convenience.