It was a rhyme she had heard before, having occasionally made up the numbers with her parents and the Very Reverend on his Sunday evening visits. At Eunice’s request, she repeated it aloud, and because it was so satisfying, went on chanting it silently to herself. By the time it was her turn to deal she had managed to reverse affirmative and negative, thus placing the second pack of cards on the wrong side.
‘Surely it’s simple enough,’ Eunice snapped.
The Belle was more forgiving and whispered some words of encouragement in her ear.
The rounds of Solo proceeded in silence except for the necessary bidding and Eunice’s regular instructions.
‘Never lead an ace to a solo player unless you have the king, Emily. And how many times must I tell you to breast your cards.’
Murmuring breast your cards under her breath, she tried not to look at the Belle’s capacious bosom, but the more she told herself not to, the harder it was to keep her eyes averted. Like a compass returning to true north, her gaze was forever finding its way back to the sight of the visitor’s ample cleavage. It was more than a little distracting.
Despite the ban on table talk, Eunice allowed conversation during the time it took to shuffle and deal between each round, and the Belle was always keen to take advantage of the opportunity.
‘I suppose you’ve heard?’ she said, once Grandmother had played her final card and lost an ambitious solo bid.
Emily watched as the pink tip of Alma’s tongue flicked over her lips and her large blue eyes darted around each of the card players, ensuring their undivided attention.
‘Ruth caught one of her Italians spying.’
Grandmother frowned as she gathered up the cards and began to shuffle. ‘Spying? Surely there’s nothing of importance to the war at the McDougalls’?’
‘Don’t be silly, May. He was up on the roof peering through the skylight while she was in the bath. Lucky Orm was away or he’d have been shot.’
‘Disgusting,’ Eunice burst out. ‘What a primitive lot they are.’
Emily wanted to disagree but before she could summon the courage to speak, Alma continued, revealing that Ruth’s Italian had been sent back to the camp.
‘Quite right,’ Grandmother said. ‘There’s no room for leniency with such an unstable race.’ A quick, almost guilty expression flickered across her grandmother’s face, and Emily was sure that Grandmother was thinking about Claudio and the fight outside the Catholic church.
‘Apparently in the south, blood feuds and murder are rife,’ Alma went on in an excited, almost breathless way. ‘The whole place is quite lawless.’
Emily felt the heat rising up her neck and knew she was turning blotchy and red. She had to speak. ‘Italy is the birthplace of modern civilisation.’ She was quoting Miss Falugi, the history teacher, whose name, it now occurred to her, sounded Italian. It was a surprising revelation, but she could not allow herself to be distracted.
‘The British were just primitive tribes when the Romans conquered them.’ Her words tumbled out, and she had the sense of them splaying across the card table.
‘What rot!’ Eunice managed a warning shot across the bows but having already endured an hour of Eunice’s instructions, she plunged on.
‘It’s true. Without the Romans we’d still be living in caves and painting our faces blue. We wouldn’t even have toilets.’ She wasn’t sure of the accuracy of her last remark, but her feelings of outrage made her reckless.
Alma gave a half-suppressed laugh and looked at her with what could have been admiration. ‘That’s all very well, dear,’ she said, ‘but the modern Italian has proved himself to be a terrible coward.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It took our boys in the Middle East no time at all to round up almost the entire Italian army. A sea of white towels before they’d fired a shot.’
‘White towels?’
Alma gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Oh yes, their mothers sent them off well prepared to surrender.’
‘I think that’s rather overstating it.’ Grandmother was shuffling the cards with an unnecessary intensity.
‘No more table talk,’ Eunice snapped. ‘It’s ruining the game. And for heaven’s sake, May, you’ve shuffled the spots off those cards.’
After that, there was no more discussion of the Italians, with Eunice vigilantly policing the rule of silence. As the Belle’s pile of coins grew smaller, Eunice began to make bolder bids.
‘Misère,’ she announced and won for the third time in a row.
Alma was down to her last few sixpences and sighed. ‘May, dear, I think we need a little something to keep our spirits up now that Eunice has almost cleaned us out.’
Grandmother agreed and told Emily to get three sherry glasses and the decanter from the credenza.
Alma drank her sherry in a single gulp. ‘Just a drop more, May dear,’ she said.
Grandmother poured in a little more.
‘A smidgen more,’ the Belle pleaded and kept her glass extended until Grandmother had filled it to the brim.
On resumption, Alma’s playing went rapidly downhill – she couldn’t remember her discards and reneged twice in the same game.
‘Sorry,’ she giggled, but Eunice was not amused and emanated an air of icy disapproval.
Soon the Belle had no sixpences left and Eunice declared the game over. She swept her winnings from the table and into her beaded purse, which was so full she could no longer close it.
Emily took the opportunity to say goodnight and carried the sherry glasses into the kitchen. After she had washed and dried them, she returned them to the credenza in the sitting room before making her way to bed. Passing the half-open door of the pink room where, despite Eunice’s views on the matter, the Belle had been accommodated for the night, she heard voices. There was something irresistible about eavesdropping, but she did not want to be caught in the act. She kneeled down and fiddled with the strap on her shoe.
‘Lovely evening, May. Heavens, that granddaughter. What an odd little creature. Can you imagine: without the Romans we’d still be living in caves. And that ridiculous dress. Have you ever seen such a thing?’
The Belle’s tinkling laughter reverberated inside of Emily as if she was a hollow tube. Crouched outside the door, she felt unable to move, her heart pounding as she waited for her grandmother to come to the rescue and defend her. But, to her horror, Grandmother laughed too.
‘Sybil’s choice, no doubt,’ she said. ‘Hopeless, I’m afraid.’
From the pink room came the sound of a floorboard creaking.
‘I’ve put out a towel and there’s extra in the linen room if you need it.’
The door was opening, and she was still there, frozen. It was too late.
‘May, dear, just before you go,’ she heard the Belle say. It released her from the paralysis that had taken hold and she shot forwards, down the hallway, around the corner and into the white room.
She yanked the ‘ridiculous’ dress off over her head and threw it on the floor. How could she survive Grandmother’s mocking laughter? It was too awful. The dress was to blame and, pulling on the clothes she had worn earlier that day, she picked it up, scrunched it into a lumpy ball, and stepped out through the French doors.
It was impossible to see anything; the night, inky and impenetrable, impeded her. She moved one hesitant step at a time and, with her free hand waving in front of her to ward off spider webs, groped her way across the verandah and down onto the gravel path. She stopped, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and soon the inky blackness thinned and the shapes of trees and bushes emerged. Clutching her bundle, she hurried towards the orchard.
But having reached the orchard, she stopped again. Where was she going? The whole purpose was to get rid of the dress once and for all. She couldn’t just toss it away in the orchard; Lydia was sure to find it on her snake patrol. A proper hiding place was needed where it could rot away to nothing.
A gust of wind ruffled her hair and stir
red the leaves of nearby trees, making a sound like the murmuring of a distant crowd. She imagined the crowd moving towards her across the paddocks, invisible in the darkness. She shivered although she wasn’t cold. The breeze came from the north and still carried the heat of the continent’s interior.
She heard the generator go off and glanced back towards the house. It was in darkness except for a single spot of light, a faint glow from a lamp, although she couldn’t tell quite where or whose room it was. She turned away and, still without a clear plan, began to hurry through the orchard in the general direction of the yard. She entered at the opposite end to William’s workshop and the stables, near the open-sided shed where all the things that had been discarded and were of no use anymore came to rest. The perfect place for the dress. She had only to find a nook or cranny in which to stuff the wretched thing where it would not be found. As she got closer, she could make out the shape of the wicker wheelchair perched on top of the cart. Who would ever think of looking under the side-saddle?
Just as she was heading towards the chair, something moved at the edge of her vision. She stopped mid-step and held her breath, listening, peering across the yard towards the workshop, all her senses alert. Had she imagined it? The clouds that earlier had made the night so black were scattering, revealing a starry sky. Her eyes flicked around the yard, searching for a sign of movement. Her ears strained to hear the slightest noise. A dog? A fox? She tried not to think about the wild-looking swaggie that Della had said Roy had seen on the road.
Minutes ticked by and everything was quiet. She began to think that it was just her imagination, and tried to shrug in a nonchalant way, hoping it would make her feel more confident. But her body felt as stiff as a tin soldier. Still holding the bunched-up dress, she rolled her head back, in an effort to release the tension. Splashed across the now-cloudless vault was the Milky Way’s pale, hazy luminescence. She gazed up at the immense starry-ness.
Something banged, bringing her back to earth. She scurried to safety under the shed roof. From there, her eyes surveyed the yard once more. Someone was near the workshop door. Was it – could it be – the swaggie? She began to edge further into the junk-filled shed until her heel hit an unseen obstacle. She lost her balance and fell onto the dusty ground. Her heart was pounding, and the sound of blood whooshed in her ears along with Della’s words they’ll cut your throat for five bob. If only she could get up and run, but fear held her captive, and for interminable seconds the two urges battled for supremacy until she could stand it no longer. She scrambled to her feet as an airy peal of laughter echoed across the yard, and a figure emerged from the background of the workshop, hurrying away towards the garden gate.
Even in the darkness Emily recognised her. The shape of the figure and the way that she moved left no doubt: it was Lydia. She felt her body unclench and all thoughts of the swaggie were swept away as she watched Lydia reach the gate. Once she was out of sight, the significance of the peal of laughter struck home.
Who was with her? Who had made Lydia laugh? Where had he gone? As soon as she’d asked herself the last question, and the he had registered in her mind, she found herself running across the yard. She had barely touched the doorknob when the blue door creaked open. It had not been properly shut.
‘Hello?’ she whispered. And then louder: ‘Is anyone there?’ She waited in the black of the workshop, but no answer came.
Sneaking back along the south verandah, Emily reached Lydia’s window, where the blind was drawn. She stopped and listened, but all was quiet. On entering the white room, she made a surprising discovery: in her right hand she was still clutching the dress. Or was it the dress, limpet-like, that was refusing to let her go? It was an inanimate object, she knew that, but she couldn’t stop the feeling that it possessed a will of its own, and instead of throwing it in a corner of the room or under the bed, she hung it carefully in the wardrobe.
She undressed in the dark and slipped into bed, lying on her back with her eyes open. Sleep evaded her as she replayed the sight of Lydia hurrying away from the workshop. What had she been doing there? Was it Claudio …? Were they …? Somehow the questions remained unfinished. After all, she had not actually seen Claudio. And, in any case, Lydia was in love with Harry; she was engaged to be married. Hadn’t she seen with her own eyes the tears rolling down Lydia’s cheeks at his mention? The reality of the single tear was insufficient for her purposes and had to be replaced with something more dramatic: tears plural, welling, brimming, overflowing. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became. Lydia had been alone at the stables; she had gone down to check on something. What that might be was still unclear and, if Emily hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have worked it out. As it was, tiredness came to her rescue and she fell into a deep sleep.
16
DAWN WAS BREAKING AS EMILY woke to the rattle and screech of sash windows being lifted somewhere in the house. Grandmother and Eunice were letting in the cool morning air before another day of heat. It wasn’t long before her bedroom door opened. She watched her grandmother in bare feet and nightgown draw back the curtains and open the French doors, remembering her and Alma’s discussion from the night before. Instead of hurt outrage, she felt a rather sickening sense that she’d overreacted. Thank goodness her attempt to hide the hated dress had failed, for the thought of someone discovering it was almost worse than the memory of what she’d overheard. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes as Grandmother turned: the treacherous words about her mother could not be easily erased.
‘It’s going to be a scorcher,’ Grandmother said as she padded from the room.
There was no point trying to go back to sleep. Too many thoughts were crowding in, not just of the eavesdropped conversation, but also of Lydia and her laughter. People laugh on their own all the time, she told herself sternly.
Once dressed, and having checked the chooks, she found Della in the kitchen knocking freshly baked bread from a tin. Now that the baking was over they could let the stove go out.
‘Or we’ll be cooked too,’ Della said.
Everything had to be done early before the heat really set in. Florrie had milked the cow and was still down at the dairy, turning the separator. Lydia, Uncle Cec and Roy had ridden off at dawn to check the water troughs and shift sheep. By midmorning, the sheep would go on strike, refusing to move in the heat.
The Belle had to get moving too. She needed to be home before the mercury soared and boiled the water in the radiator of her old Bentley. Grandmother, Eunice and Emily waved goodbye from the front verandah as the Bentley set off around the circular drive.
Grandmother waved the longest. ‘What a tonic! We really should invite Alma more often,’ she said, still waving as the Bentley motored from view.
Eunice looked less than enthused, and Emily felt a spark of fellow feeling that was quickly snuffed out when Eunice told her to go and water the hydrangeas in the long bed. ‘And once that’s done, the verandahs need to be swept,’ she added before Emily had even had time to move.
The last hydrangea was watered and, thoroughly sick of the job, she made a feeble effort to coil up the hose and place it near the tank, knowing that on Eunice’s inspection it would not pass muster. She knew that Eunice derived a special satisfaction from putting her to work; she’d noticed the barely disguised pleasure on her face. It was just as Della had said: there was a pecking order, and Eunice was on a higher rung.
It was terribly unfair, and to maintain her feelings of resentment she tried to block out the weekly wash-day sight of Florrie dragging heavy sheets from the copper, her beet-red face running with sweat. But Florrie was a servant – it was her job. Whereas she was a guest, and would never, for example, be asked to remove a rotting possum from one of the water tanks, nor a swarm of bees from the sitting-room chimney. Nor would anyone demand that she black the stove or polish the mountain of silver, set out on the men’s dining table each week. The list of unpleasant jobs began to grow. She had to think about somethin
g else before the examples completely undermined her righteous indignation.
And, anyway, the verandahs were still to be swept, for which she needed the straw broom that was kept in a tall cupboard next to the laundry. Rather than go the direct route, which would have taken no more than a minute, she decided to walk the other way, thereby delaying the start of the job. She anticipated her time-wasting journey: there were ten verandahs, all of differing lengths. A few were simply empty spaces, while others were cluttered with benches and old wooden tables covered with pumpkins and onions from the kitchen garden. On the north-east corner of the house was a summer sleep-out, while wicker tables and chairs and the striped canvas swinging seat made the front verandah into a north-facing outdoor sitting room. In contrast, Uncle Cec’s office verandah was dark and gloomy, enclosed by a tangle of evergreen creeper.
She began her circumnavigation by heading east. At the corner, she turned left. Red geraniums grew along the edge of this verandah, giving it a cheerful air. Ahead of her, a squatter’s chair with long timber arms sat outside the billiard room door. She had almost reached it when the door opened and Grandmother stepped out.
‘Just the person I was hoping to see,’ Grandmother said with a smile. Emily smiled back distractedly, expecting Eunice to appear. ‘Claudio’s been to see me. I must say it’s an excellent idea.’
‘What?’ She had heard the words, but their meaning eluded her.
‘How many times must I repeat myself?,’ Grandmother said sternly. ‘And for goodness sake, don’t stand there with your mouth open, catching flies. You look like a simpleton. As I was about to say: the English language can’t fail to have a beneficial effect on him.’
Emily shut her mouth, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing.
‘It’s the language of Western civilisation, after all.’
The words ‘ancient Greek’ were on the tip of her tongue, but she forced herself to say nothing and listened in growing amazement to Grandmother’s plan. The lessons were to take place in the courtyard at the men’s outdoor summer dining table. With the war on and a skeleton workforce, it was under-used. Of course, they would have to fit in with work requirements, and Uncle Cec would need to give the go-ahead. But when the working day was over, she and Claudio were free to meet.
The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean Page 11