Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies

by Jackie French

But they both knew that something more than glances had already happened.

  They met at church the next three Sundays, sitting through the service with their respective families, Malcolm with his father and mother (his father a grey-moustached man who hiccupped well-bred snores during the sermon), Sophie sitting further back with Miss Thwaites and the Thuringa servants behind them — her father came to church only on Christmas Day.

  But afterwards she and Malcolm talked, while Mrs Overhill and Miss Thwaites carefully managed not to engage in conversation, no matter how long their carriages were kept waiting.

  They talked of Oxford, city of spires and young men in black students’ gowns who climbed over the wall to get into college after hours, and of London with its creeping fog that tasted of coal. If she hadn’t loved him before, she’d have loved him then, speaking of the world beyond gossip and corned-beef factories, so unlike the talk of the Egberts, Cyrils and Alberts, the possible suitors who now so Suitably adorned the Higgses’ dining table.

  Malcolm spoke about home too: how he’d like to put the river flats into lucerne when his studies were over; about shooting rabbits by lamplight down by the river — the animals were a plague on both properties. She didn’t tell him her father took her shooting as well, rabbits and even quail that burst out of the knee-high summer grass, or about Jeremiah Higgs’s pride when his daughter shot eight rabbits with ten shots, so that for a few moments she felt almost as good as a son.

  She didn’t tell Malcolm about her father’s model trains. Malcolm might laugh at model trains. She didn’t talk about the Suitable Friends, who would not have been Suitable for a Mrs Malcolm Overhill.

  By the time Malcolm sailed again for England, Sophie was hoping he’d write.

  He did.

  Each week she waited for his letters, afraid he’d find an English girl — an honourable, perhaps — far more fascinating than a colonial Miss Sophie Higgs. But around once a week, depending on the ship’s timetables, the letter would be there. Dear Miss Higgs … for although he called her Sophie now, you couldn’t do that in a letter Miss Thwaites might read … and signed Yours truly, Malcolm Overhill.

  ‘Mr Malcolm Overhill is a most reliable correspondent,’ observed Miss Thwaites, looking up from her boiled egg.

  ‘It’s so interesting. He’s been to a Friday-to-Monday; he calls it a shoot.’ She glanced down at the letter. ‘He bagged thirty-four pheasants. The old chapel of the house has a ghost.’

  ‘Thirty-four pheasants and a ghost as well. Impressive.’

  Sophie frowned, then stopped. Ladies weren’t supposed to frown. Frowning gave you wrinkles. Ladies could smile, look impassive, or give a little laugh. Hearty laughs, like frowns, belonged to men. ‘Don’t you think it’s interesting?’

  ‘Extremely interesting. It’s just that I have never known a young man to write so regularly. Correspondence is usually between women.’ Miss Thwaites nodded to Bates to pour her more coffee. ‘Could we have fresh toast too, please, Bates? In my experience,’ she added to Sophie, ‘men add postscripts to women’s letters. PS John sends his regards and says the weather has been foul. But perhaps the men in my family are simply poor letter writers.’

  ‘He likes writing to me,’ said Sophie defensively. ‘He likes my letters too. I tell him about Warildra and Thuringa. He misses home dreadfully.’

  ‘Despite the pheasants and the ghosts. No, I agree with him entirely, my dear. After all, I chose to come to Australia, and stay here too, as did your father.’

  Sophie looked down at her letter again. By mid-1913 Malcolm would have graduated, would be home again.

  The weekly letters continued.

  Meanwhile there was life in Sydney. A dance at the Higgses’, with Suitable Friends and the Alberts and Cyrils; dances at their homes too; the small and stultifying world of commercial Sydney’s social life, far away from the stories of debutantes and balls and the London season in the English papers. These were delivered each morning so Jeremiah Higgs could read his business news, and the political news that might impinge on business, and were perused by Miss Thwaites from nostalgia and a hunger to know about the world beyond Sydney and the Higgses’ drawing room.

  Sophie was hostess at the Higgs dinner table now. Miss Thwaites sat in the middle of one side. Factory owners, an omnibus king and a newspaper owner brought their sons to dinner, younger sons who might charm a corned-beef princess, and also prove their ability to manage the corned-beef empire after her father’s death.

  And Cousin Oswald.

  Cousin Oswald was from Canterbury, which appeared to be a more desirable part of New Zealand than Greymouth. He had become an accountant there, had applied for a job with his cousin (twice removed) in Australia, and now, five years later, was deputy manager and came to dinner once a month: a family dinner, just the four of them. Cousin Oswald was perhaps an obvious contender for Sophie’s hand. Sophie had made it plain, however, that even though he was worthy and admirable in all ways, she would not consider him. She had not admitted that she was also deeply jealous of her father’s confidence in Cousin Oswald. A life spent as Cousin Oswald’s wife, kept on the sidelines by a husband instead of a father, would be insupportable.

  ‘We’ve gone as high as we can go with the existing market,’ said Cousin Oswald earnestly that evening, forking up lobster gratin as if it were fish and chips. ‘What would you think of a luxury tin, Mr Higgs, with a painting of a maid presenting a can on a silver salver in a drawing room? We could charge two shillings for a can like that.’

  Mr Jeremiah Higgs looked with resignation at his despised cutlery, and at the lobster, then took a mouthful. ‘No pretty picture on the lid will change corned beef into a luxury. No, lad, we need to come up with a way to make ’em eat more of it, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t other countries like corned beef?’ Sophie had already finished her own lobster.

  ‘Australians can only sell in the Empire, Sophie love. Canada doesn’t want Australian corned beef — they’ve got their own farms — and Higgs’s has already got the contract for the Indian army. But England is our best market. Always has been.’

  ‘Can England sell to other countries?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The idea seemed obvious. ‘Then why can’t we export to England and have an English company that would sell it to, I don’t know, France, maybe?’

  Miss Thwaites smiled. ‘I doubt the French would care for corned beef.’

  Mr Higgs chewed his bread roll absently. ‘If the Frenchies are going to war again with Germany, their army could use corned beef. If it’s good enough for our troops in India, it’s good enough for them. What do you say, Oswald?’

  ‘An English subsidiary might open up many possibilities,’ he admitted cautiously.

  ‘It might indeed.’ Jeremiah Higgs reached over and patted his daughter’s hand. ‘You’ve got a good head on you, Princess. If it works out, you’ll have a diamond necklace. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Pearls,’ murmured Miss Thwaites. ‘Much more suitable until she’s married.’ She nodded to Sophie to rise, to leave the men to port and cigars and business discussion. She heard the men’s animated voices discussing English managers and possible markets, as Bates closed the dining-room door.

  Sophie felt a small tide of anger rise in her. It had been her idea, yet she was banished to the drawing room. At least when I am married, she thought, I will be in charge of when the ladies must retire. And when Dad discusses business with my husband I will insist that I be there too.

  The year passed: winter at Thuringa, away from the cold southerly winds of Sydney; then back to more dances, more musical evenings with Suitable Friends and the Reginalds and Ernests who never looked beyond Sydney Heads.

  Malcolm wrote of his friend who had joined the Sussex Territorials, determined to show the Prussians that England too had a backbone of military might; of a London ballroom where he’d danced with debutantes, but none half as beautiful as you.

  It was t
he first time he had called her beautiful.

  The first Sunday in December at Bald Hill Mrs Overhill smiled at Sophie after church, adding, ‘A charming hat, Miss Higgs’, before climbing into her carriage. Her husband raised his hat and followed her.

  Sophie stared. For seventeen years Mrs Overhill had taken great care not to be introduced to her. Was seeing each other at church for seventeen years the same as an introduction? Beside her, Miss Thwaites frowned.

  Two weeks before Christmas the invitation arrived, gold edged, to the Overhills’ New Year’s tea party.

  It included Miss Thwaites too, who had somehow become companion rather than governess now that Sophie was older; her grey silk was now trimmed with lace, and she had put the schoolroom in Sydney under dustcovers. The invitation also included her father, though Sophie guessed her hostess would hope, even expect, that Mr Jeremiah Higgs would send his regrets.

  ‘The white silk, with the yellow roses,’ said Sophie, while Annie the maid waited patiently to lace her stays and slip on whatever dress they settled upon, to draw on Sophie’s stockings and put on her shoes, to curl her hair with the hot irons, as she would wear it down for a country afternoon, not up.

  Miss Thwaites shook her head. ‘Mrs Overhill will find white muslin more acceptable.’

  ‘The one with lace panels, then.’

  ‘If you insist.’ Miss Thwaites hesitated. ‘Sophie, there have been reports that Mr Overhill has suffered losses on the share market; that Warildra is heavily mortgaged.’ ‘Reports’ meant that Mr Jeremiah Higgs had made it his business to find out.

  Sophie considered the information only briefly. Her father had more than enough money, after all. And Malcolm loved her, despite the corned beef and his mother’s earlier disapproval.

  And she loved Malcolm. She also loved the idea of a future in which she would be Mrs Malcolm Overhill. A Malcolm Overhill was as suitable for a Sophie Higgs as the Higgs fortune was for Malcolm Overhill.

  Miss Thwaites, even her father, must feel the same.

  The dress was white, the two panels of floral lace from shoulder to hem made by French nuns.

  And she was overdressed. She knew it as soon as the coachman handed her and Miss Thwaites down from the carriage; saw the girls in plain muslin dresses scattered around the gardens, playing tennis on the court, most definitely not in French lace. Miss Thwaites had been right.

  ‘Miss Higgs, and Miss Thwaites, how good of you to come.’ Mrs Overhill’s large yellow teeth flashed a smile. Her husband muttered something, and peered for just slightly too long at Sophie’s bosom.

  Miss Thwaites stationed herself in the drawing room with Colonel and Mrs Bronte, who kept hens to eke out a military pension, but had still made Mr Higgs sit on the verandah instead of in the drawing room when he returned the Brontes’ afternoon visit the previous year, to ensure that the social superiority of army over trade was made clear.

  Sophie wandered, ostensibly to see the gardens, across the fine green grass that no sheep would ever have a chance to eat. Mrs Overhill hadn’t introduced her to any of the young women. Over by the hydrangeas two unfamiliar girls turned their backs, raising their voices slightly as a barrier.

  She was embarrassed, and angry too. She should go back and find Miss Hartley, the vicar’s daughter. Mr Higgs contributed generously to the church, ensuring that Miss Hartley had become a Suitable Friend too. But she didn’t want to pass the two girls again.

  She headed behind the house, through the gravel courtyard, past the dogs barking on their chains. Then stopped.

  Dark faces looked up at her. Dark faces like Moonbeam Joe’s and his wife’s and all their family, whom she loved. Five black stockmen crouched by the dairy, in worn moleskins and tattered shirts that had once been blue, chains on their wrists and ankles linking them together and attached to a steel bolt in the wall. She saw the whites of their eyes as they glanced at her, then looked away; they were so motionless as to be saying, ‘We are not here.’

  None of Miss Thwaites’s lessons had told her what to do when faced with chained men. Nothing, probably. Like painted ladies, this was something a girl should pretend she didn’t see.

  And yet Sophie looked again, saw cracked lips. The courtyard glared heat. ‘May … may I bring you a drink?’

  She wished she hadn’t said it. She had no right to offer drinks at Warildra, even ask the kitchen for them. The black men must be criminals, might grab her if she came too close.

  It was as though she hadn’t spoken. They looked at the ground, not her.

  She moved away, lifting her white skirt to keep it clear of the dust. She found a bucket at a rainwater tank with a tap. She filled the bucket, then handed it to the first man in line, who did not look at her; he drank four gulps only, then passed it along. She filled the bucket again, and then a third time, till she sensed their thirst was quenched, although still none had looked up at her, nor spoken.

  Anguish tore at her, not at their chains, but at their resignation. These could not be criminals.

  She put the bucket back. She had no words. It was as if the men here, and her action, did not exist. The world felt crooked. She turned, silent, and walked back to the garden.

  She was passing the conservatory when she heard her hostess’s voice. ‘A sweet thing. Quite pretty. Overdressed, of course, but that can be fixed.’

  ‘… her mother?’

  Sophie stiffened. Was that the voice of Malcolm’s married sister?

  ‘If anyone remembers that old scandal, she’ll be an Overhill, not a Higgs. No, it would work out quite well. I shall take her in hand, of course, to make her presentable, but she will scarcely expect a London season, as a girl of a better family might. Little Miss Higgs will be quite happy here in the country in a new house of her own. I am sure Mr Higgs would be delighted to provide it. Malcolm has no mind for politics.’ Was there a ghost of relief in Mrs Overhill’s voice at the thought of remaining at Warildra? Mr Overhill senior, whispered one of the Suitable Friends, had a mistress in Melbourne.

  The voices vanished through the potted begonias.

  Sophie absently wiped the perspiration from her palms onto her handkerchief. So Mrs Overhill expected a proposal, even encouraged it. She should be glad.

  But she was angry, angry at this yellow-toothed woman who thought thirty thousand daggy sheep made her superior to fourteen corned-beef factories, who felt she had the right to plan Sophie’s life. And she was shaken still by the memory of the chained men’s faces, not so much hopeless as wiped of any feeling at all.

  There was something else as well. For the first time, her future with Malcolm here, the seasons of branding, shearing, the roundups, sounded such a small life. Yet life in town with a Cyril or an Egbert would be worse, and surely as Dad grew older, she and Malcolm would have to be part of managing the factories, even if the day-to-day running were left to Cousin Oswald …

  And she was helpless. Her hem was dusty. Mrs Overhill and the sniggering girls would remark upon it. For once she did not care.

  Later, in the carriage, she looked at Miss Thwaites. Miss Thwaites, who had been rereading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that morning, who must have been as bored as she had been that afternoon, these many, many afternoons, but never showed it. ‘Miss Thwaites, do you sometimes feel like the world is closing in on you? Like there is something, anything, just past the horizon, but you can never find it?’

  Miss Thwaites smiled, but there was a look of concern too. ‘Frequently. But as the fourth daughter of a country parson, I was brought up to expect such an experience. My dear, a woman of intelligence rarely finds satisfaction in the company of other women, or even a husband. Women’s lives must always be circumscribed. Husbands need relaxation when they come home, whether it’s from overseeing property or running a corned-beef factory or defending the Empire. But there are always books, the infinite world of the mind. A woman of good sense finds her own interests and consolations. How did your hem get dirty, Sophie?’
she added quietly.

  ‘There were men chained up in the courtyard. Black men.’

  ‘I imagine they’ve refused to work.’ Her voice was cautious. ‘Mr Overhill is the local magistrate as well as our Member of Parliament. He is probably sending them down to prison.’

  ‘Is it against the law not to work?’

  ‘It’s … complicated. Wild blacks can be troublesome but …’ She hesitated again.

  ‘The blacks around here aren’t wild!’ Sophie thought of Moonbeam Joe, of his wife Bill, who made her Johnny cakes with syrup.

  ‘I confess that much of what happens with the natives in this country makes me uneasy. But that is the law.’

  ‘Laws can be changed. Like you got the law changed so women can vote.’

  ‘There were tens of thousands of us,’ said Miss Thwaites dryly. ‘It took nearly two decades to achieve.’ She glanced at Sophie. ‘It might also have cost me my career, if my employer had been less tolerant. Once a woman loses her reputation it is lost forever. Sophie, this is not an issue you should involve yourself in. A woman must limit herself to the causes her husband approves.’

  Sophie thought of the men stumbling through the dust towards the prison. When Malcolm comes home, she thought, it will be different. Malcolm would never let men’s lips crack with thirst in the courtyard. She would be Malcolm’s helpmeet, just like missionary wives helped their husbands in darkest Africa.

  Just for a moment she felt pity for Miss Thwaites, a single woman who had never been able to hitch her life to a husband’s wider one.

  She and Miss Thwaites were at Thuringa when Malcolm returned in mid-winter. She saw him first at church, even browner than before, with new mutton-chop whiskers, but so much the same that she felt her breath catch. He caught her eye, smiled, and suddenly his smile was on her face and hers on his, and she could feel his warmth even in the chill of the church.

  After the service, the hatted Sunday-best crowd around them, he took her hand and bowed over it. It was the first time they had touched.

  ‘I do hope you’ll join us for luncheon tomorrow,’ said Mrs Overhill, rigid beside him in corsets and satin, bestowing a yellow shark smile.