The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean

by Robertson, Mira;

  When the meal was over Emily went as usual to the kitchen to help with the washing up. She took a tea towel from the stove rail and began to dry the dishes. Florrie and Della were in the middle of a conversation.

  ‘But what’s wrong with him?’ Florrie said.

  ‘War is what’s wrong with him,’ Della replied. ‘You’re too young to remember the last one. Half came back mad as hatters. And he’s lost his leg, poor bugger. How would you like it, with only one leg?’

  Florrie lifted one foot off the ground, trying to balance as she scrubbed the meat pan. She wobbled and had to put her foot down again.

  ‘You shouldn’t swear, Della,’ she said not for the first time. ‘Specially with her’, and she gave a prim nod in Emily’s direction, indicating that she was looking after her even if Della had temporarily lowered her standards.

  She smiled back at Florrie. The truth was that she did not mind Della saying bugger. At first it had been thrilling to hear swear words; now, with everything the way it was, they were the only words that felt appropriate.

  Della opened the warming oven and removed a covered plate, putting it on a tray along with some cutlery, a serviette, a little jug of gravy and a set of silver salt and pepper shakers.

  ‘Come on, Florrie,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to take it down.’

  Florrie dropped the pan in the sink and swivelled around, her work-reddened hands dripping water onto the floor and a look of alarm on her pudding face.

  ‘Why do I have to go?’

  Della spooned a dollop of thick cream onto a slice of lemon meringue pie and put that on the tray too. ‘Because there’s no-one else and it’s not my job to go traipsing down there.’

  ‘Traipsing down where?’

  Della and Florrie both turned to her. She could see Della’s mind working and wished she’d kept quiet. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be involved. But it was too late.

  Della picked up the tray. ‘Workshop, and don’t dilly-dally.’ The cook thrust the tray into her hands before she could protest, while Florrie rushed across and opened the flywire door.

  With Della prodding her from behind she soon found herself out on the kitchen verandah, holding the tray. Florrie banged the flywire shut and then the door, cutting off all means of retreat. She heard Della call out, ‘Good luck.’

  Dusk was falling as she walked down the path to the workshop, passing the rose hedge, heavy with fragrant pink blooms. A few tardy bees, laden with pollen, were still buzzing around them. A lone white cockatoo, flying towards the home swamp, gave its harsh squawking cry and she flinched. What a nervous nelly, she imagined her mother saying.

  The closer she got to the blue door the more anxious she felt. She had used the workshop as if it was her own and, after the events of lunch, who knew what William was capable of? Her hands trembled and the plate slid to one side of the tray. Reaching the door, she put it down on the ground and knocked.

  Before she could make a run for it, she heard William call out ‘Enter’ in a commanding voice.

  Once inside the workshop she hesitated. It no longer felt like her domain.

  ‘What are you waiting for? You’re late.’

  She startled, and the cutlery jangled against the plate. One foot in front of the other. She moved towards the light – a small yellow flame flickering inside the glass of the hurricane lamp – trying to hold the tray steady.

  Cigarette smoke hung in the air around the big armchair. Everything looked smudged, including William’s face. An ashtray on a stand that she had not seen before was beside the armchair, filled with cigarette butts. On the other side, the lamp sat in its usual spot on a low stool. There was no space for the tray. She waited, expecting some instruction, but William took no notice of her and drew deeply on his cigarette, before blowing out another plume of smoke.

  ‘Where should I put it?’ She tried to sound matter of fact and not reveal her nerves.

  A hand emerged from the miasmic cloud and yanked the lamp off the stool. Kerosene sloshed and a blue and yellow flame flared up. She yelped, expecting the lamp to explode and, when it didn’t, she had to cough a few times, as if the first yelp had been a cough too. She placed the tray on the stool and straightened up. William held out the hurricane lamp for her to take. Her anxiety was beginning to transform into something else. Did he expect her to stand there holding the lamp while he ate?

  ‘Hook,’ he said, in answer to her unspoken question, and waved towards a hook on the beam behind him. ‘So they sent you?’

  She hung the lamp on the hook and avoided his non-question.

  ‘If there’s nothing else –’ she began, before he interrupted.

  ‘Try the desk, bottom drawer.’

  Her stomach twisted, like one of Florrie’s dishrags. What had he discovered? Her letter to Dorothy? But it was in the top drawer. Or was it? Now she couldn’t remember. And Fanny Hill? Where had she left it? She had a vision of herself in the armchair, limbs splayed.

  His crutch jabbed her in the thigh. ‘Get a move on.’

  She shifted back to avoid being jabbed again. A flash of anger flared, and the sympathy she’d felt because of his leg burned up in the heat of it. At the desk, her eyes flicked over the desktop, searching for incriminating evidence of her recent presence, but the light was so dim she couldn’t see and she didn’t dare to waste a second. The bottom drawer was stiff, and it took all her strength to pull it open, where she found a bottle and a small glass. On her return, she handed them to William, glimpsing the label: The Famous Grouse. She had seen a similar bottle on the marble-topped credenza and knew it was Scotch whisky.

  His hands shook as he took it, and he had trouble removing the cork, but she did not offer to help. He splashed the whisky into the glass, right to the top and, as he went to gulp it down, she saw her chance and set off for the door.

  ‘Hey, you, wait a minute.’

  She turned around, trying to remain calm. ‘I do have a name.’ She felt furious and also that she might burst into tears. Whatever happened, she would not cry.

  ‘Good for you, Emily,’ he replied with a mocking laugh.

  ‘Why do you have to be so rude? Everyone’s just trying to help.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, I don’t want everyone’s help. I can do without your rotten pity.’

  He said it with such venom that she felt assaulted. She had to get away, and this time made for the door without stopping.

  ‘That’s right, Persephone, run back to the light,’ he called behind her.

  She let the door swing shut with a bang and raced towards the house, shrieking when a leafy branch flicked her in the face in the dark. It was on reaching the kitchen door that his parting taunt caught up with her and she heard the word Persephone. Wasn’t she the wife of Ulysses? No, that was Penelope. Despite her anger, she found herself wondering about it, and why William had called her by that name. Not that she cared. Whatever happened, she was never taking his dinner down again. It would have to be Florrie’s job, and she would have to go whether she liked it or not.

  25

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING EMILY WAS determined to avoid the kitchen after dinner. But nor could she face the sitting room, where Grandmother and Eunice were busy at their needlework, and Uncle Cec with studying the Australian Turf Guide. At least her role as Della and Florrie’s assistant had enabled her to avoid this dreary fate despite Grandmother’s desire for her to learn crocheting or embroidery. ‘Something to do with your hands,’ she’d said, a phrase that made Emily feel queasy, reminding her of other things her hands had been doing. There was no chance of spending the evening with Lydia either, as she had hurried away as soon as the meal was over. In the end, there was only one place left to go.

  ‘Been wondering where you’d got to, haven’t we, Florrie?’ Della said.

  Florrie turned from the sink, her face pink and damp from the heat of the water. She smiled and nodded.

  ‘Still, you’re here now,’ Della added, taking William’s plat
e from the warming oven.

  Emily watched Della load the tray. She would not deliver it; they couldn’t make her. They were servants and she didn’t have to obey them. But defying Della was easier said than done and, when the cook held out the tray, she found herself accepting it without a word of protest.

  This time the blue door was slightly ajar and with a prod from her foot it swung open. She entered, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dim yellow light. She cleared her throat in order to announce her presence but there was no response and her fragile confidence began to evaporate. She was determined not to be a coward. ‘Gumption,’ she whispered and tried to assume a confident expression as she set off.

  To her surprise, the armchair was empty. She put the tray down on the stool and immediately began the trek back across the room, feeling relieved at William’s absence. Halfway to the door she stopped. It was the perfect opportunity to retrieve the letter to Dorothy, and return Fanny Hill to the bookshelf.

  She was about to open the top drawer of the desk when something moved in the shadowy part of the workshop where the lamplight did not penetrate. William emerged, swinging his crutches. Once he’d sunk into the armchair, he spoke. ‘Come.’

  It was just how he’d spoken last time – single-word orders that reminded her of Lydia, and she felt the return of the same feelings of resistance and anger towards him. But then he continued in a friendlier tone. ‘So, Miss P, you came back after all.’

  ‘My name is not Miss P.’

  He ignored her rebuttal.

  ‘Sit down.’ He waved at the footstool. ‘If you have time,’ he added. ‘I don’t want to keep you from more important things.’

  She couldn’t decide whether he was making fun of her and was preparing to refuse his offer, even as her bottom was sinking down on the footstool. It was odd the way her mind and body could have such different ideas. She was quite sure that she did not like him at all.

  In a minute, she would get up and leave. There was nothing to stop her. He couldn’t treat her like a … the word servant, recently used with some condescension in regards to Della and Florrie, popped into her head, and she wished she’d put her foot down there too. It was Florrie’s job.

  ‘You’d better have this.’ William was waving a book at her. ‘Unless you’ve finished it? It’s rather a compelling read, don’t you think? Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.’ The title rolled off his tongue with relish as he tossed it to her.

  She caught the book, feeling shame suffuse her body. Meanwhile, William pulled the tray onto his lap. It was her opportunity to leave, but she found herself unable to move and continued to sit, an inert lump, watching him eat.

  ‘It’s a classic,’ she croaked.

  He looked up from the rabbit fricassee.

  ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have.’

  He waited for more.

  ‘I’m reading them all …’ She faltered. ‘Before I get married.’

  ‘Them all?’

  ‘The classics … of English literature.’ Saying it aloud, she was beginning to have doubts.

  He nodded, as if giving the matter serious thought. ‘And then you’re planning to marry?’

  She gave a weak sort of nod.

  ‘I suppose when you’re very old.’

  She couldn’t help a look of surprise.

  ‘People have died before finishing the classics.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Still, it’s probably better to die trying than just get married. Anyone can get married. Not everyone can read the entire canon of English literature.’

  Was he mocking her again? She felt a wave of mortification.

  ‘So you’ve become a reader,’ he went on. ‘Are you a writer too?’

  She was still wallowing in humiliation and it took some time before she even understood what he had asked her. Was she a writer too? As if it was a normal thing. A question that nobody had ever asked her before; she had not even asked herself, except that the letter to Dorothy had become more and more like a story, like something a writer might write. A small flame flickered inside her. She wanted to answer, but did she dare? And then before she’d made up her mind, there was no chance to say anything.

  ‘Shit!’

  The tray went flying, everything scattered onto the floor, and a plate broke as William gripped his stump.

  ‘Shit, damn and blast to bloody hell.’

  She had leaped up as the tray crashed to the floor. ‘I’ll go –’ she began, meaning, go and get help.

  ‘No!’ he shouted between the flow of curses. ‘Whisky.’ He waved towards the desk.

  She returned with the bottle, and he grabbed it from her, gulping it straight down. His face was wet with sweat, and he was breathing as if he’d been running. She felt scared and wanted to leave, but was afraid of provoking a further outburst and kneeled down instead to pick up the dinner things. She put pieces of the broken plate on the tray, along with the cutlery and salt and pepper shakers. She scooped up bits of sauce-covered rabbit and Della’s rhubarb fool as best she could while the sound of William’s laboured breathing and half-stifled groans continued.

  ‘No good for anything. I’m a dot and carry one, a bloody peg leg. A cripple.’ He spat out the ugly words.

  Crouched on the floor, she watched him. Sweat still ran down his face. He gritted his teeth, eyes closed and face screwed up against the pain.

  ‘Tell Della I’m sorry about the plate.’

  It was the signal for her to leave, and she got to her feet.

  William opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘Are you really different, Miss P, or just like all the rest?’

  Before she could reply, he closed his eyes again. She hovered, uncertain as to whether she’d been dismissed or not, and trying to decide on an answer to his question. He didn’t open his eyes and still unsure of the right answer – or whether there even was one – she departed carrying the tray and its debris.

  Back at the kitchen, Della took the tray from her. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  It was odd, but she found herself wanting to protect William.

  ‘You should be more blinking careful,’ Della said, dumping the remains of the rhubarb fool in the chook bucket. ‘And you can put that bit of stew on a tin plate for the foxy.’

  She did as she was told. When she’d finished, she turned to see Della holding up a book.

  ‘What’s this?’ The cook waved Fanny Hill.

  How on earth had it ended up on the tray? That Della should discover its contents was too awful to contemplate and, with a supreme effort of facial contortion, she forced her mouth into a wonky smile.

  ‘Oh, William’s, I suppose. I’ll take it back tomorrow.’ And with that she plucked the book from Della’s hand.

  26

  THE NEXT DAY, AS SOON as breakfast was over, she took the chook bucket and egg basket and departed for the chook yard. Stuffed into the waistband of her skirt and disguised by her untucked blouse was Fanny Hill. She’d made up her mind to throw it into a waterhole in the swamp where it would never be found. Having made the decision, she couldn’t wait to be rid of it and sped through her chores.

  The resident clucky hen made the usual protests, squawking and flapping in her daily refusal to move off the eggs. She was an aggressive pecker with a malevolent glint in her beady eye, and the war between them had been escalating. Della had shown her how to grab the chook by the tail and fling her off the nest, but it required nerves of steel. Sometimes she just couldn’t face it. She gathered the eggs from the other nesting boxes, and cleaned the water trough with the straw broom before refilling it with fresh water. Rather than return to the kitchen and the possibility of delay, she left basket and bucket in a corner of the yard. She would collect them later, once Fanny Hill was no more.

  She scrambled under the bottom wire of the fence and entered the swamp. Along the dry fringe, river redgums spread their branches with lavish abandon, leaves sweeping the ground as wil
ly wagtails hopped from branch to branch, noisily asserting their territorial claims. Overhead, cockatoos swirled in screeching gangs, and a pair of spur-winged plovers swooped past just above her head. She set off, weaving her way around clumps of rattly reeds, fallen logs and dead waterlogged trees. There was no sign of water; it had to be further in.

  She picked up a stick and twirled it. Her mind wandered, and she found herself thinking of the last disturbing encounter with William. Are you really different, Miss P, or just like all the rest? What had he meant? Different how? And from whom? And anyway, did she want to be different?

  Of course she was different from Grandmother – she was old. Eunice was old too, and yet sometimes she’d felt a dreaded sense of them being alike. And what about Lydia? Wasn’t Lydia different? And didn’t she want to be like Lydia? To wear clothes in that effortless way; to be beautiful and strong and not care two hoots about what anyone thought? But if she wanted to be like her, then they would be the same. It was all rather confusing. Didn’t it come down to the fact that being different meant being odd, or wrong? Like Mother? She swiped her stick at a thistle and watched the silky threads explode into the air ahead of her.

  It was strange how her longing for her mother had gradually receded, and how she no longer yearned for a letter from her. The occasional short note from her father was enough. As her mother faded into the background, it had been Dorothy who’d remained, kept alive as the addressee of that unsent letter. Which brought her straight back to William’s other question. Was she a writer?

  Before she could give further consideration to this crucial question, the ground began to slant upwards in a gentle rise and she soon found herself standing on a shallow bank before a pond of murky water. Without further ado, she pulled Fanny Hill from her waistband and hurled it away. For an excruciating moment the book floated on the milky grey surface. She held her breath as the pages absorbed water. Slowly, slowly, it sank, and she gave a great sigh of relief as the book was at last consigned to the deep.