‘You’re wrong,’ said Louisa. ‘I see things exactly as you do. If we all act together we’ll have one another and if we advertise for a man to help, we’ll have a team. That’s what I’ve been thinking. We can help each other. Then none of us will feel so … useless.’
‘Me too,’ said Maggie. ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking.’
‘I don’t see why you should go.’ Adelaide addressed Pearl crossly. ‘You might as well stay where you are. At least you’ll be paid.’ She flushed at the lie. ‘At least there’s food in the house.’
‘We have food in our house,’ said Maggie. ‘Of course we do. Or we’d be dead.’
‘But you have to steal it,’ said Adelaide spitefully. It was horrible, but she was so tired and so angry that the woman she’d intended to sack had resigned before she’d had a chance to sack her then reinstate her because she’d have had second thoughts which might have been kind or selfish but who would have been able to spot the difference? And she felt so betrayed that Louisa, who only the day before yesterday she’d rushed to comfort, was undermining her, and that silly little Maggie, who only the day before yesterday she’d saved from jail, was sitting there looking as if she had a better claim to her housekeeper than she did. ‘Of course you must do what you think best,’ she said, which was impressive given what she was thinking. ‘But please think of baby Freddie who loves you so much and the routine you’ve established, which is so important to him and to me when I’m trying to resolve a crisis in the shop, which may I remind everyone is a secret. I can depend on you all to respect that, can’t I?’
‘Of course,’ said Pearl, and the others nodded without interest, disinclined to cooperate with anyone so reluctant to cooperate with them.
‘Please stay, Miss McCleary,’ Adelaide said. ‘Please, please stay. I don’t think I can manage without you,’ and because she began to cry, an unprecedented move, neither Louisa nor Maggie felt they could insist her own need was greater. Louisa even wondered if she should cross the room to give her former friend a pat on the hand.
No coats had been removed. No seats had been taken. No one had thoughts beyond their own urgent need to speak. But it seemed to Pearl that if anything was to be achieved by this conversation it should be conducted in a civilised manner. ‘I’ll make tea,’ she said, planning, revising, planning and revising. Why and how, why and how.
‘But will you stay?’ Adelaide insisted.
‘And what about cake? I made a butter cake yesterday. Should we have some cake?’ Pros and cons, this or that.
‘Of course have cake if anyone wants it,’ Adelaide said.
‘Then let’s all sit,’ said Pearl, which was not her place but since no one seemed to know exactly what her place was, they accepted she was in charge and so did she. When everyone was sitting and everyone had tea and cake, she said, ‘I think we can avoid the use of the word husband which so upset Mrs Nightingale.’
‘But not me,’ said Maggie.
‘Or me,’ said Louisa, struck suddenly by the allegiance she was forming with a girl so far beneath her in social graces that some form of correction was required. ‘Not that we are in any way comparable. I, for instance, do not steal.’
‘And nor does Maggie, except in the criminal sense of the word,’ said Pearl. ‘If we’re going to act together and draw strength from each other, then we can’t judge each other. We’re all responsible for our predicaments to a greater or lesser degree and my feeling is that Maggie’s degree, as she is the youngest by far, is the least.’
Louisa picked up her cup, which obscured most of her face, and blinked. That was uncalled for, she thought.
‘So where will you live?’ Adelaide asked.
‘I’ll continue to live and work here if that still suits you,’ Pearl said. ‘I will work my hardest to help you in any way I can. But the condition is that, regardless of what you think of the way I handle my own problems, you don’t involve yourself.’
‘That seems reasonable,’ said Adelaide.
‘What about our problems?’ Maggie wanted to know. ‘What’s your plan for us?’
‘Well,’ said Pearl, ‘this is how I see it.’
And how she saw it was exactly as she had seen it originally The man they needed had to have skills, which included bravery, common sense, knowledge of the law, ability to his use fists, tracking, shooting, building, banking, horses, retail and also wholesale.
‘Also good with figures,’ said Adelaide. ‘And prepared to listen.’
‘Not frightened of anyone. Did we say that?’ said Louisa. ‘Not dependent on me for everything.’
‘And who might be a good husband for one of us,’ Maggie added. ‘So, strong and affectionate and helpful.’ She was ignored.
‘There won’t be any such person,’ Adelaide said. But the others insisted there would be in times of such awful unemployment and in any case, Pearl pointed out, that was the least of the immediate hurdles. They needed to agree where he might live and how he could be paid. Louisa said he could live with her in the guest bedroom. She could say he was her cousin. Adelaide said it would draw gossip. Everyone knew that Louisa didn’t have a cousin.
‘Then he could be my cousin,’ said Pearl. ‘We will need to offer him payment. I have some money but not much. Maggie has none and Louisa has none.’
‘I have a little,’ Adelaide said, but only because she didn’t want to admit to none. She did have a little in a bank account. It was for the rainy day her father had said dampened all married life sooner or later.
‘A little is plenty to start with,’ Pearl said. And so it was agreed. Pearl and Adelaide would put up enough to cover a month’s wage subject to their approval once they had met him. Louisa would prepare her guest room. Maggie would help with the cleaning. The advertisement would be placed in the Sydney Morning Herald because Sydney was far enough away to ensure anonymity, and Annie McGuire would interview the applicants because her very sound judgement could be trusted.
And so the notice appeared:
Four respectable ladies in friendly country town seek part-time husband. Must have knowledge of the law, banking, horses and bush skills as well as a grasp of boxing, farming and retail. Salary by agreement. Contact PO Box 293, Sydney.
Oh Lord. The term ‘part-time husband’ had crept into the advertisement after all. Adelaide and Pearl had despatched Louisa to Myrtle Grove to place it confidentially, and exhilarated by the change of scene she hadn’t been able to help herself. She laughed and laughed at the wickedness of it.
She’d have laughed on the other side of her face had she guessed the fury, full of flame and smouldering ember, her mischief would raise in the breast of Annie McGuire. Had Annie known that silly, reckless, thoughtless Louisa was to blame for the folly, she’d have been on the earliest coach to Prospect and brought Pearl home in an instant.
As it was, the advertisement appeared just two days after the letter Pearl had sent asking Annie to interview applicants for a job that in no way had caused her to think ‘shared husband’. On reading it she could only imagine that Pearl had lost all reason and that her foolish scheming was out of control. She blamed herself. She should have seen it coming. She’d driven the wretched girl clear out of her mind.
While awful responses to the disgusting invitation gathered in the Post Office box, the full horror of their possibilities played havoc with Mrs McGuire’s conscience. On her knees by the side of her bed with her rosary wrapped around her fist she agonised, as well she might. What was the wilful girl thinking? In the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what was she thinking? Who were these other women and how could they possibly imagine they were respectable? Brazen barely touched it.
Pearl’s letter hadn’t so much as hinted at brazen. I know, dear Annie, that this will sound peculiar, advertising for a man to help four respectable ladies but we are all in dire need with manifold problems (ha ha!). It would be a big help if you could sort through the replies and interview the most likely candidates. I’ve co
nsidered the sort of man who might reply to our advertisement and devised a way that might weed out any with unsavoury intentions. You must pretend to be one of us and you must suggest that the other three are older than you and even poorer.
Annie called upon the Blessed Virgin to guide her through the mire and the Blessed Virgin, who could only have been a loving woman with a practical nature, elected not to appear to her supplicant in a dream but to let her reach her own conclusion, which by morning she had. She would collect the applications. She would sort through them. She would interview any who sounded sane. She would give one of them the job and she would place her faith in God the Father, repellent though the whole sorry thing would be to Him.
As early light broke through clouds over Bondi Junction the next morning, a hopeful ray pinpointed Annie’s exit from the modest house in Limerick Street: a short, dumpy woman wearing a squashy brown hat pulled down hard over her ears, striding in a grey, shapeless gown towards the tram that would take her to the General Post Office in town, and thence to Gomorrah.
Chapter Fourteen
The Mayor of Prospect greeted the day with less conviction and even greater trepidation than Annie McGuire’s. He’d gone to sleep knowing that his wife was spoiling for a fight. He’d woken with a dreadful foreboding, which abated only slightly when he saw that she slept still and with luck would continue to sleep until well after he’d made his escape. He crept from the bedroom carrying clothes discarded from the night before to save time and he cursed as he crashed into the washstand. ‘Wait in the breakfast room,’ his wife ordered from her sleep. ‘I have something to say to you.’
Such a chill gripped his innards. It was ice-cold acid, spewing from the mouth of a woman he no longer recognised as his wife and entering his body just below the heart, striking him in his guts over which he placed a protective hand. ‘I can give you five minutes,’ he said. ‘But you must be quick. I have a meeting.’
He had no meeting. His wife seemed to know he had no meeting. She dawdled from the bedroom a good half-hour later, during which time he told himself more than once to run. Leave. Disappear. Let her get on with it. He’d given her due warning. But he didn’t dare and not daring caused even greater pain to his poor stomach.
‘What is it, Florrie?’ he asked when she appeared. ‘I’m in a hurry.’
‘I have a proposal to make,’ she said, taking a seat opposite him and pouring herself some tea. She sipped and studied him over the cup. It was true. He had taken on a piggy aspect and she no longer cared much for him. ‘It’s perfectly straightforward. You’ve formed an attachment to the O’Connell girl and –’
He blustered at once, knowing that he must. ‘I have done no such thing! I merely said her job was safe because she needs a job and it behoves a Mayor to bestow kindness on his less fortunate citizenry.’
‘When she has a nice bust and when there’s an under-funded railway on our doorstep with your name on it,’ Florence observed calmly.
Her calm was unnerving. Why wasn’t she jealous? Why wasn’t she insisting he tell her he loved her? She’d always been so compliant. Her opinions had always been his and yet here she was exercising judgement she had no business to exercise. ‘I don’t for a minute think this whatever-she’s-called has a nice whatever-you-call-it. I can’t even place her. She’s just a blur.’
‘I don’t care about her bust. It matters not a jot to me. What I care about is that you promised her a job no one believes she’s entitled to keep, and by no one I mean In The Whole Town. You don’t seem to understand, George, that I have Right and The Whole Town on my side, so if you go against me you will be in The Wrong and The Whole Town will be against you. I think you’d find that very inconvenient. Given the way things are with the railway.’
George Mayberry blinked slowly, watching his wife’s mouth in disbelief, filtering its weird and unfamiliar emanations through his eyes as if they could help. Had he put in some kind of appearance at her maiden speech the style would have been less foreign. But he hadn’t, so now he had to make of it what he could. What he made of it was bad. The railway was indeed on the brink of stalling yet again. Money had dried up. He was hard at work applying pressure on the money source to release enough funds to finish the bloody thing before the next Mayoral election, ‘to give work to our returning boys’. And now here was his wife about to ruin everything. He’d spent enough gruelling years in local council to recognise a threat in the offing.
‘If I tell Mr Stokes that you restored the girl to her job against my wishes, then make no mistake, George, The Whole Town will soon believe you’ve Formed An Attachment even though you’re married to me, and the very least thing you would become is a Laughing Stock but more than likely people will think of you as An Adulterer. I might even be forced to consider Divorce.’
‘Florrie, that’s ridiculous,’ said the Mayor, knowing it wasn’t, no longer prepared to underestimate the silly creature across the table from him. ‘I have no intentions towards the girl and we are happily married.’
‘Unless, of course, I choose to save you.’
‘And how might you do that?’ Despite his revulsion, the Mayor was fascinated.
‘By reaching an agreement. If you support me, I will support you.’
‘I do support you. I provide for you. I care for you.’
Florence laughed. ‘You are mithing the point, George. I want you to change your position on the matter of me and Parliament, then I will reconsider mine with regard to you and the girl.’ Mrs Mayberry had never before used her lisp in married life but in view of its success with the public she was inclined to test it in private.
The Mayor was floored beyond endurance. Who was she? Where had the lisp come from? Surely not Melbourne. She had gone to Melbourne to visit her sister and buy a hat. It could only be the sister, Minnie Forrester of South Yarra. Had Minnie Forrester encouraged the lisp along with ideas so beyond his wife’s normal capacity they reeked of madness? He would stop the rot at its root. He would write to Minnie Forrester and get her to make her sister see sense. No he wouldn’t. He would talk to Archie Stokes. He was one hundred per cent sure that he held more sway with the grocer than his wife did. This was the Mayor’s foolhardy decision.
Chapter Fifteen
Louisa bustled into Nightingales to collect her tea. She had no money for tea, or for anything else that might bring comfort to her unfed body, but she was confident she had a healthy line of credit. It was a family line and untouchable by dint of her standing in the community and the heroism of her late husband. She hurried straight past Ginger and Mrs Lambert behind the counter although Mrs Lambert was smiling at her in expectation. She made her way right to the back of the store where the manager was slicing ham from a large, pink, immaculately glazed and studded leg, each slow cut a loving caress. There was no finer ham to be had between Prospect and Goulburn. It was a fact. Apart from the excellence of the pig, no one else could lay their hands on cloves.
‘Good morning, Mr Stokes,’ Louisa said. She smiled at him more enthusiastically than was required but Archie Stokes was familiar with such enthusiasm, just as he was quick to notice that the beautiful Mrs Worthington was very slender these days and very pale.
‘Lovely day, Mrs Worthington,’ he said. ‘How are those horses of yours?’
‘As well as can be expected for such sorry animals.’ Louisa sighed. ‘I’m only too pleased to be giving them a home.’
Archie Stokes carefully placed a muslin cloth over the tray of delicately smoked succulence and addressed his customer with a smile. ‘And what can I do for you this morning?’ he said, knowing full well what he could, but might choose not to, do.
‘I’ve come for my tea. Has it arrived?’
‘It has.’ He didn’t declare its provenance as he usually might with something like: ‘On the Boronia direct from Ceylon to be carried by rail from Sydney to Goulburn and Cooma then on to Prospect courtesy of Mr Cobb.’ He went directly to: ‘And I expect you’d also like to settle
your bill.’ He slowly wiped his beefy hands on his apron. ‘Would you like to come into the office?’
Louisa most definitely did not want to go into the office. Mr Stokes’ manner, generally so fatherly and unstinting, held a suggestion of stint. Fatherly still, she could hear, but no longer completely respectful. She followed him, trying to hear resolve above the pounding of her heart. He’d never sounded so much as firm with her before, but today there was flint in his tone. He’d been talking to Thomas at the bank, who must have told him she had no money nor any likelihood of money. She should never have exposed herself to the bank when no one in this flaming town could keep a confidence if their own life didn’t depend on it. But what else could she have done?
‘Take a seat,’ he said as he eased himself into the comfortable chair reserved for managers or owners behind the large desk. She took the less comfortable chair opposite, reserved for thieves and debtors and hard-pressed sellers believing they could negotiate. She arranged her face to be both solvent and contrite.
‘Just the tea, is it, this morning?’ Mr Stokes was flicking through his large debit and credit book, looking for the Ws.
‘And one or two other things, but just the tea would do.’ Louisa winced. She either wanted more than tea or she didn’t want more than tea and clearly she did want more than tea so she shouldn’t have said just the tea would do.
‘As of close of business last night, you owe us fifteen pounds, seven shillings and eight pence,’ Mr Stokes said. His eyes rolled up and down the list of figures, clearly giving him cause for thought. ‘No payment for four months, which is longer than we’d like but an oversight I’m sure. And how would you like to pay that this morning?’
The choice was clear. Burst into tears. Promise payment later. Throw herself into his arms. Laugh. The choice was not clear. ‘I won’t be paying anything this morning, Mr Stokes, though thank you for enquiring. I have an arrangement with Mrs Nightingale so I’ll settle my bill directly with her.’
Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband Page 9