Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband

by Barbara Toner

  Last traces of fatherliness left the expression of Mr Stokes. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I gather little Maggie O’Connell has something similar. I’ll take it up with Mrs Nightingale so we can keep our books neat and tidy.’ He stood. He opened the door to show her out. He closed the door before she could pass through it and lowered his voice. ‘Just a thought, though, Mrs Worthington, about those horses. They’re a sickly bunch, but should you need them taken off your hands I know a man who could turn them into meat, no questions asked.’ He opened the door for her and leered into her face. ‘Total discretion,’ he said. ‘Think about it. He might do the lot for something in the order of fifteen pounds, seven shillings and eight pence less a little for interest.’ He followed her into the shop. ‘Mrs Lambert, could you wrap Mrs Worthington’s tea for her?’

  Louisa hardly noticed the tea being handed to her or the sympathetic look on Mrs Lambert’s face as she passed it across the counter. She prayed only that she’d find Adelaide at home and alone. Poor Louisa. No one listening. Not even God.

  Adelaide was as at home as could be, but so was her mother-in-law, Phyllis Nightingale of Toorak, who’d arrived out of the blue from Melbourne, summoned by her trusted delivery man turned miraculous manager, buyer and profit maker, Archie Stokes. She was in the office with her son and the door was firmly closed against the rest of the household, much good it did them if it was privacy they wanted. Phyllis knew no pitch other than forte.

  ‘Marcus,’ she was bellowing, ‘your wife is a very stupid woman. I’m sorry you have headaches but you must step in. She’s making life miserable for poor Stokes and if he goes, we’re sunk.’ She could be heard comfortably in the street and uncomfortably in the hall where Adelaide was lingering not three feet from Pearl who was preparing Freddie for the morning air.

  Pearl kept her eyes firmly fixed on Freddie, who wisely kept his eyes on her, smiling at her as she smiled at him so that between them there was only joy. Adelaide’s gaze, directed at her feet, contained only despair as she waited for her husband to defend her. But Marcus’s pitch favoured the sotto in his mother’s presence, so all she heard clearly were the final few sentences, which contained nothing in the way of chivalry.

  ‘I know exactly what’s going on and I’m sorting it out. You have nothing to worry about, Mother. Now, if you’re staying for a few days I’ll get McCleary to prepare you a room.’ Adelaide’s gaze shifted to Pearl in alarm but Pearl had her back to her as she steered the pram through the front door, and her back gave nothing away.

  ‘Miss McCleary, Miss McCleary,’ Louisa called, spotting her as she passed through the Arch. ‘Hang on a minute.’ Pearl waited as Louisa hurried towards her. ‘Is Mrs Nightingale in? I really need to speak to her. Is she free, do you think?’

  ‘She’s in but not free at this very minute. Her mother-in-law has arrived.’ Pearl dropped her own voice to pianissimo.

  ‘Good God. Phyllis. I thought she was in Italy.’ Louisa stared at the house for some kind of explanation.

  ‘I’m off for a walk,’ Pearl said, moving towards the river. ‘Do you want to walk? Or are you going to try your luck?’

  It was such a shocking day for luck. Louisa might have called on her neighbour and paid her respects to her mother-in-law, she might have walked with Pearl and discussed the likely outcome of the advertisement, which had appeared two days before, but she chose to do neither. She chose to go home, where there was no food, no warmth, no comfort, just a note on the door announcing WHORE! And now fifty-two horses, which Archie Stokes might have persuaded a less nauseated woman were mouth-watering.

  This was luck if ever there was luck. Had she opted for the walk, she’d have found that Pearl wasn’t heading to the river, but into town to collect her ordered copy of the Sydney Morning Herald with its significant entry. Pearl would have discovered Louisa’s folly, she would certainly have known the fury in Annie’s heart and she would certainly have turned on Louisa for her thoughtlessness, her stupidity, her rotten moral fibre and her breathtaking arrogance. WHORE! by comparison, if Louisa had only known it, was better.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Happily, there was no one at Pearl’s side when she read the offending insertion, apart from little Freddie, who was sleeping peacefully so didn’t hear her choke. ‘Oh no, oh help, oh Annie,’ she muttered to herself as she wheeled him at a furious pace to the Post Office to make good the damage. She calmed herself before approaching Mrs Quirk’s daughter Norah, who’d replaced the redhead as the town’s transmitter of confidential information to anyone who cared to listen. Her telegram read: Mistake in job description. Sorry. Please press on, causing Norah to wonder about a long-distance ironing accident.

  Annie, reading it several hours later, grasped its intent, despite its lack of explanation. If she felt comforted, it was only slightly. There was nothing good about any of it. In her sitting room, on the table by the fire, was a shockingly large pile of rapid respondents, twenty-six in all, who’d made haste to suggest themselves as ideal for a job so honestly advertised. Honest. That’s what seven of them called it when it was no more honest than it was respectable. An invitation to hell and damnation was what it was.

  She glared at the pile. She asked herself if the Virgin Mary was directing her to throw the lot onto the fire and report to Pearl that none had been suitable. She looked out the window and said a decade of the rosary recalling The Agony in the Garden. She went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, then returned to the sitting room where she could keep an eye on Beattie Flannagan in the backyard listlessly sketching the lemon tree as instructed ‘to keep her mind off things’. She gingerly took up the first reply and held it close to her face so she could properly decipher it. Dear Respectable Ladies (I bet), she read. I am a widower and quite capable of satisfying ALL your requirements. I may be older than others who apply but, believe me, my stamina is undiminished. Holy Mother of God, help me, she prayed.

  It echoed all the way to the Nightingale household though it changed direction en route. ‘Help me, Mother,’ a desperate Adelaide sobbed silently to her dead parent. She hadn’t lingered outside the office after Pearl’s departure. She’d taken herself to her room where she’d decided to remain all morning, allowing self-pity, impotence and fury to overwhelm her. She’d made an enemy of Archie Stokes, she looked a fool in the eyes of her husband and mother-in-law, and the only hope she had was in an advertisement for a non-existent man who would almost certainly arrive and fall in love with Louisa.

  She heard the front door open, the murmur of voices in the hall and then the office door pulled shut as she might were she in someone else’s house and of little consequence when it came to comings and goings. It was such an insult. She’d been in charge of Nightingales all war long and Nightingales had thrived all war long. She hadn’t given up when the war had ended as everyone had expected. She’d kept going despite a horrible pregnancy, a demanding baby and a husband incapable of a rational opinion. Her mother-in-law had removed herself to Melbourne the minute war was declared and accepted without acknowledgement the generous allowance the shop made to her, which appeared without fail in the monthly accounts. Now here she was, sticking her oar in when she’d never exerted any effort.

  Adelaide couldn’t stand it a minute longer. She might be a fool but she wasn’t a coward. She splashed water on her face, she brushed her hair, she straightened her clothes, she slipped on brown shoes with a small heel that indicated common sense and she paused for just a second to listen at the door for any hint of ridicule.

  She should have paused a fraction longer. She would then have known that the front door had opened to admit Archie Stokes, who was enjoying a vast joke with Marcus and his mother, infinitely more comfortable in their company than she had ever been. She might have prepared herself. He stood as she entered but made no attempt to temper his amusement. ‘Mrs Nightingale,’ he said. ‘Junior. The very person I’ve come to see.’

  ‘And here I am,’ Adelaide said, when sh
e might have told him she had no wish to see him.

  ‘We decided you were asleep,’ lied Phyllis. Her gaze was fixed on her son, ordering complicity, which was given without question.

  ‘I was changing my shoes,’ said Adelaide. ‘What was it you wanted to say, Mr Stokes?’

  ‘The books, Mrs Nightingale, the books.’ He too looked not at her but at his allies. ‘Some small question marks.’

  ‘I gather you’ve had some trouble adding up and subtracting.’ Phyllis smirked.

  Adelaide flushed. ‘But I’ve mastered both.’ She would hold her ground even if it was giving way beneath her feet like dirt down a hill in a storm.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Mr Stokes. ‘What I need you to clarify for me is the matter of special favours to friends.’

  ‘If you mean Maggie O’Connell then I think we decided, didn’t we, that there had been a genuine mistake I was happy to correct as a matter of good will.’

  ‘Not only the O’Connell girl but Mrs Worthington, who has a large unsettled bill she says you’ve agreed she needn’t pay.’ If it wasn’t quite what she’d said, who was Adelaide to argue.

  ‘I’ve made no agreement with Mrs Worthington.’

  ‘Louisa Gibson that was,’ Phyllis reminded herself. ‘Pretty girl. Bit of a tart.’

  ‘Now a widow,’ Adelaide forced herself to say.

  ‘A very pretty widow,’ agreed Mr Stokes. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Captain?’ And when the Captain failed to say anything Mr Stokes added, ‘But apparently not very honest. Widow or no widow, pretty or plain.’

  How kind-hearted Adelaide was tested. The look on the face of Mr Stokes was as unendurable as the faint grin from her husband, which had nothing to do with neighbourliness. This was how men reacted to Louisa. Louisa who had stolen William Mayberry but not wanted William Mayberry, then had not really wanted Jimmy Worthington but had married Jimmy Worthington and was now mourning Jimmy Worthington, while possibly starving herself to death owing to the folly of Jimmy Worthington and also, by her own admission, her own folly. Poor Louisa, claiming an arrangement she hadn’t made but perhaps would have tried to make had Adelaide shown her any kindness, despite the past and the likelihood of the debt ever being repaid, which was nil.

  Just how these trains of thought were ever going to arrive at a helpful station was anyone’s guess. They might have kept on chuffing about Adelaide’s tired old brain all day had Mr Stokes not said, ‘Why don’t you just leave her to me?’ And had not Phyllis replied, ‘Just what I was saying to Marcus.’ And had Archie Stokes not nodded and beamed. But each gesture conspired to bring the useless agonising to a stop and suddenly Adelaide had clarity of purpose as well as firmness of voice.

  She addressed only her husband. ‘I would like to make an arrangement with Louisa because I know she’s currently in a hole. You’re fond of her, Marcus, so I think you’ll agree with me. Her husband was killed fighting for our country. You were fortunate.’ She chose her words deliberately knowing they would create a confusion in Marcus’s breast no less complicated than the jumble in her own.

  ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say, Adelaide!’ his mother bellowed. ‘Jimmy Worthington was a reckless boy who grew into a reckless man. If Marcus survived, it was because he was more cautious and not because he was fortunate.’ She saw her mistake too late. Her son first lost all colour then found a violent pink.

  ‘Shut up, Mother!’ he cried. ‘Shut up. You know nothing about it.’ He left his position by the fireplace. He rounded on the others with an expression of wild incomprehension. ‘Jimmy Worthington died for his King, His God and His Country. I wish I had.’ Then he strode from the room, the house and, for all anyone knew, their company forever, leaving them to a silence so alive with possibilities that for a good minute no one could address any of them.

  Adelaide was, unexpectedly, the first to recover. ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Stokes. I think for the time being you can leave the matter of Mrs Worthington to me, don’t you agree, Mrs Nightingale?’ Mrs Nightingale did not but she said nothing, struck dumb as she was by the fearful anger of the only person in the world she loved nearly as much as she loved herself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Archie Stokes did the correct thing and left the Nightingale household within minutes, appalled by the turn of events, furious that he had lost control of them when it had been going so well. He examined the conversation to the finest nuance to see where it had gone wrong but could find no fault in himself.

  He hurried, head thrust forward like a giant melon on his thick stalk of a neck, back along Hope Street, nodding here and there to people who greeted him with love and respect, and slowly his annoyance abated. Abated but hovered, unhappily for the Mayor with whom he collided at the store’s entrance. The Mayor was looking to Mr Stokes for a little of the subservience that had disappeared from his home.

  ‘Mr Mayor,’ Mr Stokes acknowledged, intending to pass without being waylaid but at the last minute changing his mind because you never knew. You stopped, you passed the time of day and how often did the time of day yield an unforeseen opportunity even when you weren’t in the mood? ‘Lovely day for it.’

  ‘For what, Mr Stokes? For a gutful of domestic annoyance?’ The Mayor felt he could speak freely when his plan was, pure and simple, to belittle his wife in the eyes of the town.

  ‘You sound like a man who could do with a beer.’ Mr Stokes looked at his watch. ‘It’s lunchtime. Mrs Quirk’s?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the Mayor. ‘I could do with the beer but not Mrs Quirk’s.’

  ‘Then come into my office. Mrs Lambert will sort us out.’ The move was unusual. Mostly they did not lunch together but today each was drawn to the other in the expectation that the other would restore normality to their place in the world.

  ‘Had a good morning?’ the Mayor enquired resentfully. He couldn’t have cared less.

  ‘Mrs Nightingale Senior is in town,’ observed Mr Stokes. ‘That woman has a brain on her.’

  ‘I’m not very fond of a brain in a woman,’ the Mayor said and Mr Stokes, who’d intended to work his way round to the stupidity of Mrs Nightingale Junior and the erratic behaviour of her husband, sensed a more rewarding path so kept his trap shut. ‘My wife seems to believe hers is as good as any man’s and intends to prove it. Against my wishes.’ The Mayor sounded not only mystified but petulant.

  ‘She spoke very well at her meeting though,’ Mr Stokes remarked. ‘You can’t take that away from her. People were impressed.’

  ‘By what?’ said the Mayor. ‘It’s bunkum. It’s all second-hand thinking. The woman’s never had an original thought in all the years I’ve known her which, by God, have been long.’ He paused for the merest second while Mr Stokes took a loud, thoughtful slurp of his beer. ‘And now she wants to go into Parliament. I won’t have it. I won’t support her even if she does decide to spread it about that I’ve taken a fancy to the maid, which I certainly have not. No one in their right mind would believe I’d done anything so ridiculous.’

  ‘If you mean the O’Connell girl, I think they would,’ teased Mr Stokes. ‘She has a lovely chest. No one would blame you.’

  ‘That is not what Mrs Mayberry thinks. Mrs Mayberry says if word gets out, I’d be branded an adulterer and bang would go the railway and me getting credit for all my efforts.’ The Mayor had never before taken the grocer so dangerously into his confidence. They’d done business, naturally, but the footing had always been as it should. He was the Mayor and Mr Stokes was the grocer, more or less. Slightly less than more, possibly. ‘She’s expecting you to go along with her,’ the Mayor said now, with a look of Great Significance, as his wife might have described it.

  ‘Is she?’ said the grocer. And through his despondency the Mayor heard in his tone something disrespectful, something mocking, something that suggested a wrong turn in the conversation.

  ‘I assured her you most definitely wouldn’t. You wouldn’t, would you?’ the Mayor asked in alarm.


  The effect of beer on a man’s empty stomach is as random as gin on a woman’s. Where it induced in the Mayor deep despondency, it imbued the grocer with a curious elation. Mr Stokes bit into his ham sandwich and rejoiced in its wonder. He considered it for a moment, as if it might have an opinion. ‘It depends,’ he finally said.

  ‘On what?’ asked the Mayor, whose own sandwich had been set aside with just the single bite taken from it.

  ‘Well, you have my sympathy,’ said Mr Stokes. ‘Obviously. Man to man. But I’m not just a man. I’m a Business Man and I can see a transaction here that might profit us both.’ He held the Mayor’s wary gaze for just a little longer than was comfortable. ‘I will save your reputation if you help me out on the small matter of the Bluett land, which an interested third party has asked me to revisit, as it were.’

  The Mayor’s jaw crashed to his neck. The Bluett land was surely history. Unpleasant history. Ancient and upsetting. All that remained of it was the sour taste of corruption and injustice plus some highly sensitive documents in his safe. What was the fellow up to? What third party? He was blackmailing him. Man to man counted for nothing. Past favours counted for nothing. The grocer was without loyalty or conscience and now he was holding a loaded gun to his head. His, the Mayor’s head. Surely he wouldn’t dare pull the trigger. If it came to power and influence the name of Mayberry surely trumped the name of Stokes. He smiled at the grocer. ‘What about the Bluett land? It’s dead and buried. Settled ages ago.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Mr Stokes, smiling back. ‘I know you’ll appreciate this, Mr Mayor. You were magistrate, so you’ll remember the case. Pegs in the ground but no papers to prove it, so a question mark. There’s always money to be made from a question mark where land is concerned and someone has contacted me with a view to making it.’