Mr Chen's Emporium

by Deborah O'Brien

  In Amy’s second week of convalescence, she spent the daylight hours in Aunt Molly’s sunny north-facing back garden. Amy had forgotten how warm Sydney could be. There were even a few late-flowering blooms remaining on the rose bushes. Aunt Molly’s coachman, who also served as her factotum, had set up a divan and a table in the semi-shade of a eucalypt tree, while Aunt Molly had provided an assortment of books for her niece to read. It wasn’t long before she was immersed in Mr Dickens’s last novel, Our Mutual Friend, the story of a young man required to marry a girl he had never met. Amy wondered if it might contain some clues to help her unravel the mysteries of such marriages.

  At the end of the week Doctor Fullerton made a house call. He found Amy much improved and advised short walks around the garden and an excursion to the seaside if the weather remained mild.

  ‘Breathing the salty air might prove the restorative she needs,’ he said.

  So Aunt Molly, who loved an adventure, arranged for her coachman to take them to Circular Quay from whence they availed themselves of the services of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company to travel to Manly. Although Aunt Molly wouldn’t permit Amy to walk on the sand, they sat on a bench overlooking the ocean beach and took afternoon tea in a little inn beside the protected harbour cove. Then they returned via the steamer to Circular Quay where the coachman was waiting, and they were home before nightfall because the doctor had warned against the night air.

  One afternoon they went to a matinée performance of a minstrel show visiting from America.

  ‘Don’t ever tell your father,’ said Aunt Molly.

  ‘Of course not,’ replied Amy.

  As she sat beside her aunt in the packed theatre, Amy couldn’t understand why the minstrels were wearing black make-up and woolly wigs. With their blue eyes, they were obviously as white as she was. However, Aunt Molly didn’t seem to find it odd. Neither did the audience who greeted each item with growing enthusiasm. Admittedly, the music was enchanting, particularly a song called ‘Beautiful Dreamer’. Amy checked the composer’s name in the programme. Stephen Foster. It was the last piece he wrote before he died.

  Towards the end, a skit took place involving Chinese characters. The actors were white men disguised in grotesque make-up and imitating the dancing gait of the Chinese workers whom Amy had seen in Millbrooke. That might not have been so bad if the Chinese had been represented as decent citizens, but it was quite the opposite. On the stage a den of opium dealers was trying to ruin the white hero. The audience hissed and booed. Amy squirmed in her seat. She didn’t want to embarrass Aunt Molly, so she whispered: ‘I am feeling poorly, Auntie. I shall go and sit in the foyer for a while.’

  In her fourth week Amy received a letter from Eliza containing an exceedingly strange request. Did Aunt Molly live close to the university and would it be possible for Amy to visit the premises and send Eliza a detailed description? After Amy showed her aunt the letter, Molly said they would do the trip that very afternoon. It was only a couple of miles away on the Parramatta Road.

  When Amy saw the buildings set high above an embankment, they reminded her of a Scottish castle, except that the stone was a pale gold, the colour of Manly sand. As their carriage reached the gatehouse, Aunt Molly spoke to the gatekeeper and soon the horses were leading them up a rise towards the castle. Amy peered out the window at the students, young gentlemen dressed in black flowing gowns with bundles of books pressed under their arms. She tried hard to remember every detail so she could describe it to Eliza. It was an intriguing and glorious place.

  That same week Aunt Molly took Amy to David Jones’ store in Barrack Lane.

  ‘You have lost so much weight, Amy, you require a new outfit.’

  Instead of the sensible clothes Amy needed, Aunt Molly bought her a ready-made dress of palest pink voile, patterned with textured hail spots.

  ‘How pretty you look, my dear,’ said Aunt Molly. ‘I shall ask the attendant to pack up your navy dress so that you may wear this one back to Newtown.’

  As she pirouetted in front of the mirror in the dressing room, Amy fancied she was Elizabeth Bennet attending a ball at Netherfield.

  ‘You must have a new hat to match,’ said Aunt Molly who soon found one, trimmed with a lavish plume of pink feathers and a generous trail of ribbons at the back. Amy could never wear a hat like that in her father’s presence, but she could wear it to Millerbrooke. It would give her the courage to face Charles and his new wife.

  At the start of Amy’s fifth week in Sydney, Aunt Molly’s doctor proclaimed her fully cured – not the slightest sign of congestion.

  ‘Amy, you are well in body,’ said her aunt, ‘but I fear there is a malaise inside you which has persisted in spite of the best care I could provide.’

  Amy looked down, unable to answer.

  ‘Is it the loss of your darling wee sister?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘And what is the other part, Amy? Is it a young man?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Has he broken your heart?’

  Amy felt tears filling her eyes.

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Charles.’

  ‘Is there any hope of a reconciliation?’

  Amy blurted out the answer before she could stop herself: ‘No, he has gone to China to marry his betrothed.’

  Aunt Molly was silent for quite some time. Then she asked: ‘Is he a Chinaman?’

  ‘Yes.’ Amy looked into her aunt’s eyes, seeking the glint of prejudice she had observed in so many faces that night at the School of Arts, but there was only a look of curiosity and concern on Aunt Molly’s face.

  ‘An arranged marriage. I have some experience in that field.’

  What did Aunt Molly mean? Amy wanted to know everything.

  ‘When I was about your age, I met a beautiful young man and fell in love. He was the son of the village schoolmaster and was planning to become a teacher himself. Although teaching is a noble profession, it is among the most poorly paid. And my parents didn’t approve. I was the elder of two daughters and my family’s future depended on me marrying well.’

  ‘Like the Bennet daughters in Pride and Prejudice,’ said Amy.

  ‘Quite. We considered eloping, but I wasn’t brave enough. So I acceded to my parents’ wishes and gave him up. Not long afterwards, they introduced me to my second cousin from Edinburgh, an older gentleman whom they had always wanted me to marry. And that was how I became the wife of your Uncle Edward.’

  ‘But you loved Uncle Edward, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not when I married him. In fact, I hardly knew him. But I grew to love him. What was the other course? To sulk and seethe? To resent my husband because he wasn’t the beautiful young man I had desired? Yet who is to say how that might have turned out? We are too easily bewitched by the grand romances that we read about in novels. Yet rarely does an author tell us what happens to the couple when the rapture fades and the real world takes over. Imagine having to tolerate Mr Darcy’s prissiness for a lifetime. Or being married to that selfish, manipulating Mr Rochester.’

  Amy gasped. How could Aunt Molly say such hideous things about Messrs Darcy and Rochester? ‘But, Aunt Molly,’ she protested, ‘Jane and Mr Rochester were blissfully happy. She said so herself.’

  ‘An unreliable account. I have always believed that Jane would have been better off marrying St John. What a fine man he was. Just like your dear departed Uncle Edward. The truth is that romantic expectations can breed disappointment. On the other hand, when you don’t expect happiness, it can creep up on you.’

  ‘Are you saying that Charles and his bride will be happy?’

  ‘If he is a good man, he will do everything in his power to make it work. It is his duty.’

  ‘Was the marriage between my parents an arranged one too?’

  Molly laughed. ‘No, Amy. Theirs was a love match. Being the younger daughter whose sister had already married a wealthy man, Margaret found our parents much more lenient.’
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br />   ‘A love match?’ Amy was puzzled. She couldn’t imagine her dour father being romantic.

  ‘Yes, it was. And they still love each other. Your father’s love for Margaret is his redeeming feature. His one area of softness.’

  Amy tried to reconcile the intractable Matthew Duncan with the notion of softness. And then she remembered the night Peggy was born and her father’s concern for his wife and his grief when the baby died. Perhaps Aunt Molly was right.

  On her very last day in Sydney, Amy paid a visit to Miss Howe’s – the successful ex-student returning to her alma mater. When Miss Howe assembled the students for afternoon tea, they besieged Amy with questions about the goldfields and life in a boom town. She was embarrassed to say her father had never permitted her to visit the diggings. Briefly she considered telling them about the young woman she had encountered the first day and the dozens of similar ladies she had seen since then, venturing furtively into the daylight as if they were nocturnal creatures unused to the glare. But she decided that although ladies of the night might well be fascinating beings, they were not suitable topics of conversation for a group of young female scholars. Instead, she described the wonders of Mr Chen’s Emporium, carefully omitting the man himself. Then she spoke about the Chinese shopkeepers and miners, not as the Celestials and Chinks who regularly appeared in newspaper caricatures, but as real people. And when they begged for another Millbrooke story, she told them about the platypus. They found it hard to believe such a creature could exist.

  As Amy was preparing to leave, Miss Howe presented her with a gift.

  ‘For outstanding achievement in French.’

  It was a French dictionary.

  What a perfect present. Now she would be able to devour every single word of Monsieur Galland’s ‘Histoire d’Aladdin’.

  Amy had barely been back a day when Eliza appeared at the Manse, brimming with excitement.

  ‘Can you keep a confidence, Amy?’

  ‘Of course.’ After all, she was an expert at keeping secrets.

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  Amy repeated the words solemnly, crossing her heart as she spoke.

  ‘I know you have been sad on account of Charles, but I have news which may cheer you. There is someone right here in Millbrooke who has lost his heart to you.’

  ‘To me? How do you know? Has the person in question confided in you?’ Then a name flashed across her mind. ‘It’s not Joseph, is it?’ she asked warily.

  It was a moment before Eliza replied, ‘I can tell by the tone in your voice that you do not reciprocate.’

  ‘He is a good man, but I cannot ever feel romantically disposed towards him. Are you cross with me, Eliza?’

  ‘Perhaps a little. But I have to admit you have always been most circumspect in your dealings with him. I shall let him down gently by saying your affections lie elsewhere.’

  ‘Please don’t tell Joseph about my feelings for Charles!’

  ‘Of course not. Joseph will assume it is someone at your church. Anyway, once Charles is married, you might be more inclined to consider Joseph in a romantic light. Though, by then, he could well have transferred his affections to someone else. After all, there are many young ladies in our congregation who have been known to swoon over him . . .’

  Amy let Eliza prattle on, but the comment about Charles’s marriage was a reminder that, by holding on to her feelings for him, she would be committing a terrible sin – coveting another woman’s husband. Yet, even if it meant condemning her eternal soul to damnation, she could never stop loving Charles Chen.

  Now

  Everywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere, it was almost spring, but in Millbrooke it was still the depths of winter. A circle of ice lay on the top of the metal birdbath, while the lawn wore its morning coat of frost. To a newcomer who had grown up on the coast, it resembled a light dusting of snow. But Angie had soon come to realise it was something much more sinister, creeping up from the creek while she was asleep to kill her newly planted garden. An invisible fog, like Bram Stoker’s vampire, tainting anything in its path.

  The French lavender that she thought would fare so well in a climate akin to Provence had been the first to keel over. When she visited the local nursery, they told her she’d planted the wrong variety. Only English lavender had any chance of surviving winter nights, which dipped below zero. So she pulled out the dead bushes and started again. It was the same with the geraniums she’d brought from her Sydney garden – they had wilted in a single night, and now their leaves were crisp and brown. Although she’d been tempted to clip them back – for the sake of neatness – the nurseryman advised her to leave the frost-affected tips in place as protection, like scar tissue, at least until the threat of further damage had passed. They might even produce some new growth in the summer, he said.

  Mr Songbird had been her lodger for some weeks now. She would have to stop referring to him by that nickname. Richard had started to do it as well. Soon it would spread to his cronies at the pub and then, like an exotic virus, it would sweep through the town and she would be responsible for an epidemic.

  Jack Parker wasn’t so bad after all. He never complained about the frugality of his surroundings; he just seemed to be happy living in a home rather than a motel. During the first week Angie had organised for the electrician, Brad Horley of Horley and Sons, to add extra power points in the guest room. At the same time, he checked the wiring and pronounced it sound. Apparently, his dad had rewired the house in the seventies. Whenever Angie cleaned Jack’s room, she wrestled with a snake-like tangle of black cords leading to the various power points. She could only guess how many appliances he attached in the evenings.

  Angie cooked breakfast for him every day. It was the least she could do for a man who was paying her nine hundred dollars a week in rent. Sometimes they had dinner together as well, in the kitchen, because the table in the dining room was littered with painting paraphernalia. It was her roast lamb he liked best. He said American lamb didn’t taste as good. The reason might have been the mustard crust infused with fresh rosemary, but Angie suspected it was more likely to be the fact that Australian lamb wasn’t grain-fed.

  Wednesday was painting day. The first hour was always spent in banter about men, taking place over tea, coffee and homemade slice. In fact, most of the day was peppered with innuendo and double-entendre. The women made Angie laugh, which was a good thing for someone who still cried a lot.

  They all knew about Jack Parker living at the Manse.

  ‘How’s the cowboy?’ asked Jennie. ‘You don’t want to swap for one night, do you, Angie? I could stay here at the Manse and you could go to my place.’

  ‘He reminds me of Clint Eastwood in Play Misty for Me,’ said Moira.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said Tanya.

  In fact, nobody except Angie could recall the movie.

  ‘I remember when Clint was young and beautiful.’ Moira paused to sigh. ‘You should have seen him in Rawhide.’

  ‘It’s not fair, Angie,’ complained Jennie. ‘I would have done anything to have him stay at my place.’

  ‘He might come to visit if I told him about my spa bath and the heated towel rail,’ said Narelle. ‘After all, you only have that crappy old cast-iron bath and an antiquated water heater.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you have someone to keep you warm at night, Angie,’ said Ros.

  ‘He’s a paying guest, Ros. I’m not sleeping with him,’ protested Angie. ‘Anyway, he’s married.’

  ‘Only kidding. But you never know your luck. And it’s early days yet,’ said Ros with a wink.

  The class hadn’t progressed far with their still-life, but at least they’d finished the yellow roses. That was good timing because the rose bush was now bare. The blue and white porcelain, however, was proving to be a problem. Despite Angie’s advice about capturing an impression of the swirls and scrolls, the women were trying to paint them in intricate detail.

  At lunchtime she
brought out a portrait she had started several weeks earlier. A work in progress. Her first painting since Phil’s death, apart from walls and ceilings and undercoating her students’ canvases. It was a picture of Amy. Almost full-size. Initially Angie had considered putting her under the lych-gate, surrounded by briar roses and dressed in a picture hat and gauzy frills, with a parasol in her hand. A typical nineteenth-century Romantic painting. She’d even done a detailed sketch. Although it was a pleasing composition, it looked Pre-Raphaelite, and Amy didn’t seem to be an ethereal kind of girl. Not if her reading material was anything to go by. A young woman who chose to read Jane Austen and George Eliot had to have a practical side to her. So Angie had painted her curled up in the window seat, reading a novel, and if you looked closely you would be able to see the title. She hadn’t decided which book yet. That would come at the end.

  The women enthused so much over Amy’s portrait that Angie showed them the Anton Weiss photograph and the contents of the trunk.

  ‘Imagine having the actual choker from the photo,’ said Tanya, gently fingering the velvet band.

  ‘Do you think the picture was taken on her wedding day?’ asked Ros.

  ‘We couldn’t find anything about a marriage in the church registers,’ said Angie.

  ‘Bert told us it was quite likely she didn’t marry at all,’ added Moira.

  ‘She could have faced the same problems we’re experiencing now. Lack of eligible men,’ suggested Jennie.

  ‘What about all those miners?’ asked Ros.

  ‘They probably went back to the wife and kids in the home country,’ suggested Tanya. ‘They might have had a fling with a Millbrooke woman, but not a permanent relationship.’