It took the Mayor to his bureau drawer, from which he withdrew a map of the district. He laid it out on the floor so he could examine it more thoroughly. He needed reminding. He found his spectacles in his pocket, he put them on and he dropped to all fours for the best possible view of the matter. He studied the part of town Beyond the Arch, which had once been grand of course but was now badly neglected or he’d have bought into it himself.
He traced his finger along the right-hand side of the road as you travelled out of town, to the Worthingtons’, a shabby rambling house on six acres, which included paddocks on either side and a substantial garden behind. It had been a great house for high jinks when the Worthington Seniors had paid the rates. On the left-hand side his finger stopped at the Nightingales’, an even larger house with an excellent billiard room, built by Ernest Bluett, grandfather of Mrs Nightingale Junior, as a wedding present to her father, his son Arthur, who’d sold it to the Nightingales when he’d inherited Somerset. The Mayor remembered Phyllis Nightingale’s glee on moving in and up in the world. A handsome woman, but mean. She’d spoken meanly to him on more than one occasion. He thought about Phyllis Nightingale’s meanness for a full minute before returning to the map.
Between that house and the O’Connells, a track led from the main road to Somerset Station. Before the gates to the estate were reached, the land bordering it to its left belonged to the Nightingale property and to its right the O’Connells’, previously the Careys’, left to Cissie Carey who’d married Frank O’Connell. This was where discomfort began, where the Mayor’s conscience collided with his sense of entitlement.
He bent low over the map. He swung his weight onto his substantial bottom to relieve the pain in his knees and he considered not only the map but his own position. There, beyond the gate on the right hand side, were the 400 acres in question butting onto the O’Connells’, pegged – everyone agreed – by Ernest Bluett but, in a disastrous oversight, never bought by him. Who knows why he hadn’t spotted the anomaly when the Crown had released the lots? But he hadn’t and in the fullness of time, Frank O’Connell had.
There had been paperwork to show that the plot wasn’t part of the original Bluett acreage, and paperwork had been tendered to the court to show that Frank O’Connell had legitimately purchased it. Then all the documentation had vanished into thin air, if you could call the air inside the Mayor’s safe thin, because he’d reached an agreement, brokered by Larry Murdoch with Arthur Bluett, and as a result he had been Mayor ever since.
The Mayor sighed. Why resurrect a dispute that had been laid to rest? Who was muck-raking now? Angus Bluett, brother of Mrs Nightingale Junior, was the current owner. Joe Fletcher was the tenant. Angus was no more a farmer than Florrie was. Fletcher kept himself to himself and young Bluett never visited because he was having a high old time being a banker in Sydney. The Mayor’s guess was that the greedy little bastard, aided by Stokes, meant to go after all the O’Connell land, because trouble-making Frank O’Connell was out of the picture.
The Mayor sighed again, this time for his principles. He so badly wanted to be a man of principle. The sigh contained a smattering of sympathy for little Miss O’Connell and that bit of his sigh conjured into his presence young Maggie herself, who opened the door, saw him on his knees and hurried to his side. ‘You’re not ill, are you, Mr Mayor? Have you fallen?’ When he looked at her dear little face and heard the genuine concern in her sweet voice, unsullied by gross ambition or greed, he wondered if he could make her love him, whatever he did or didn’t do regarding her land.
Chapter Twenty-two
Martin Duffy, so much more to Maggie’s taste than the Mayor, was having a very early lunch in a sunny corner of Mrs Quirk’s pub, writing his mother an amusing letter about the ladies’ hopes for him, which he had every expectation of fulfilling. Their problems aren’t nearly as bad as they imagine. You’ll be delighted to hear that I don’t need money. I’m not sure I can repay you as yet but you know, dear Mother, that I will when I can. He put down his pencil, content with the effort.
‘Delicious rabbit,’ he said to the tired young man behind the bar who, unlike the cheeky young woman, was disinclined to engage in small talk. ‘Lovely food, thank you,’ elicited only a nod. A direct question was required. ‘The girl who was here yesterday …’ produced a blank stare. ‘Brown hair, brown eyes, this tall.’ He lifted his hand to his chin. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Norah. Proprietor’s daughter.’ He could have been saying, ‘Horse. Won’t gallop.’
‘Oh,’ replied Martin Duffy, ‘I’m a proprietor’s son. My mother runs a pub.’
‘Then you’re practically married,’ said the tired young man, causing Martin Duffy to laugh in agreement.
‘Now, who will sell me a stamp?’ he asked, waving his letter in the air. The answer, it turned out, was the very same young woman, who appeared to be fully employed at the Post Office. ‘Mail for Sydney,’ he announced minutes later to Norah Quirk, who was very pleased to see him.
‘Are you enjoying your stay?’ she replied. ‘It’s very different from Cork. Or Dublin.’ He agreed that it was, but about as cold. He asked when she’d last been to either place. The answer was never because she’d been born in Ballarat but she gathered he was from either one or both, which he said wasn’t entirely correct. His people were from Kilcare. ‘It must be your cousin who’s from Cork or Dublin,’ concluded Norah, a stickler for accuracy when it came to who was lying about what. And he said that was correct but as she was very quick to report to Theresa Fellows, ‘He didn’t have a clue. What a hoot!’
By the time he’d found his way back to Nightingales and located Archie Stokes, the grocer was very well aware that no one for a minute believed Mr Duffy to be Miss McCleary’s cousin. That being the case, he was only too prepared to invite him into the office so they could become properly acquainted. ‘Take the weight off your feet,’ he advised, taking the weight off his own with a thump as he dropped into the manager’s chair. ‘Cup of something?’
‘Just had my dinner, thanks,’ Martin Duffy said.
Archie Stokes nodded, deducing without appearing to that the young Irishman had never served in any army anywhere, let alone one defending the King. It mattered not a scrap to him. He hadn’t either. What interested him was the man’s business. If he wasn’t the housekeeper’s cousin, who was he and why had he moved in to Mrs Worthington’s when he could have had one of Mrs Quirk’s excellent rooms? If he was a lodger then how long did he intend to lodge? That was the question. ‘Always nice to see a visitor stay more than a day or two,’ he said. ‘Any plans while you’re here?’
‘Not so far,’ smiled Martin. ‘My cousin likes it here. She thought I might too.’
‘And how are you finding us so far?’ asked the grocer.
‘So far, very pleasant.’
‘Well your cousin’s a boon to the Nightingale household, I can tell you that much,’ Archie Stokes ventured. ‘Poor Captain Nightingale isn’t the man he was and poor Mrs Nightingale Junior tries to help but she’s never been what you’d call an intelligent woman. That household would be lost without Miss McCleary and me, the whole town will tell you that. We’re keeping their heads above water.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Martin Duffy. ‘My cousin is a very capable woman. I’d go so far as to call her a very clever woman.’
‘And a fine housekeeper,’ agreed the grocer. ‘But unmarried. Odd that such a clever, good-looking woman remains unmarried. Maybe she’s too clever. Or sour. Sometimes she wears a sour look. I mean no offence.’
‘The war,’ said Martin, standing. ‘Terrible for the wedding business.’
Mr Stokes also rose, telling himself that the young man reeked of opportunity as powerfully as the Jenkins’ family pigs reeked of ham. Not a cousin, certainly not a cousin, but very likely a lover and you couldn’t go beyond secret love for opportunity. ‘You’ll be well looked after by Mrs Worthington.’ He paused as if suddenly struck. ‘Ano
ther clever woman but between you and me, not quite as clever as she thinks.’ He opened the office door. ‘Good-looking though. Very good-looking.’ He winked. ‘Watch out for that.’
He offered Martin Duffy a taste of Maisie Jenkins’ excellent ham as he guided him from the store. ‘Let me know if you ever need anything,’ he said. ‘I never turn my back on a man in need.’ He laughed. ‘Or a woman.’ They shook hands and Martin Duffy left the palace of dreams imagining he had the measure of the man and, given time, would be able to wrap him around his little finger. He said as much to Louisa over their evening meal, rabbit casserole on toast.
‘I met Mr Stokes today,’ he said. ‘Nice man.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘He spoke highly of you.’ And when Louisa raised an eyebrow, ‘Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? I believe we understood each other. Which must be a good thing, don’t you agree, Mrs Worthington? It’s a good start, don’t you think? To know we can get along and work towards some kind of agreement?’
‘Adelaide says he’s a thief and so does Maggie O’Connell. He wants to buy all my horses for meat, which is disgusting.’
‘But it would solve a problem, wouldn’t it?’
Louisa put down her knife and fork. ‘I don’t think you understand my problem. The horses aren’t the difficulty. I could shoot the horses. You could shoot the horses. I need someone to shoot the people sending them to me with menaces.’
‘Well it won’t come to that. Negotiation is the thing,’ said Martin Duffy. ‘Don’t you think, Mrs Worthington?’
But Louisa didn’t know what to think, apart from, You have lovely eyes. She said, ‘Please, Martin. I thought we’d agreed. Call me Louisa.’ She tossed her curls. She smiled at him. ‘Where else did you spend your day?’
‘Here and there,’ he said, watching the bounce of the curls. ‘I toured the town, I wrote to my mother, I had something to eat at Mrs Quirk’s and after that I visited Mr Stokes to get the measure of the man.’ He returned to the subject because it was hanging like a broken branch that might drop on his head any minute.
‘And what did he measure?’
‘He isn’t small. He’s wide and quite tall but not very deep. That’s my estimation of him from my experience in pubs and boiling-down factories.’
‘Which is limited,’ Louisa teased.
‘I think I will have a small rum,’ he said.
‘In any case,’ Louisa said an hour or so later, ‘I don’t imagine anyone will deliver any more horses now you’re here.’ Because she was sitting dangerously close to him on the sofa and because they were both looking at the fire neither saw the expression in the other’s eyes – one of longing, the other of alarm – and neither heard the note being pushed under the front door. It wasn’t until they headed to their separate bedrooms that Louisa saw it and handed it to Martin Duffy because it was addressed to him. They both stared at it, unopened, in shock.
‘They won’t call you a whore,’ Louisa said.
And of course Pearl hadn’t because the note was from her and on the face of it as straightforward as could be, which wasn’t very under the circumstances.
We head to the railway tomorrow immediately after breakfast, she’d written. I have made arrangements to hire a buggy from Lambert’s, as Mrs Nightingale’s turns out not to be available.
Chapter Twenty-three
Marcus had considered the housekeeper’s request an outrage and said so in tones ringing enough to be heard in Pearl’s room even though it had been less of a request than an offer made by his wife. Not only were they to be without a housekeeper who was costing them an arm and a leg, she wanted to take their sulky so she and her cousin could go gallivanting all over the countryside. And not any countryside, but along the hellish road that led to the railway, which was full of ditches deep enough for a man to drown in. He wouldn’t hear of it, even if it hadn’t rained. There would be so much dust. He’d just had the sulky cleaned, he said. Did she know how annoying it was to have a freshly cleaned sulky made dusty at once? This was the nub of the household’s problem. Its head, when not drinking himself senseless, was bad tempered and intolerant. Occasionally he was tearful. Drunk or sober, he was a snob on his mother’s side.
The loss of the sulky was a nuisance, Pearl had decided, but not the end of the world. Imagine the fuss if Martin Duffy crashed it, or ran over someone. Not for a minute did Pearl believe Adelaide’s regret when she announced the news as if Pearl mightn’t have heard it for herself. There had been more resentment than regret in the conveying, as if the outrage had had to be explained to her because she hadn’t seen it for herself. ‘You won’t be late back, will you?’ was all she said as Pearl left the house the next morning before Freddie had even been changed.
‘I’ll do my best,’ Pearl replied, but in her heart she knew that whatever best she had in her would not be devoted to getting back early, it would be to holding her nerve while the hopeless boy went about business whose challenges she couldn’t begin to anticipate.
She had no idea how long a hellish drive might take. She had no idea how long it might take for them to find anyone who might have come across an ex-soldier who, now she thought about it, probably looked like any other ex-soldier. If she could choose, they would be there and back by lunch and full of delight that they’d spotted Daniel at once, explained Beattie’s wretched plight and received his immediate assurance, with barely a backward glance, let alone any awkward kissing, that he was on his way home. Or, failing that, that they’d immediately met a fellow who not only knew Daniel Flannagan but had seen him days before and could report he was homeward bound already.
Her next best hope, she decided as she walked ahead of Martin Duffy to collect the buggy Bert Lambert promised would get them safely there and back, was that she would sit in it while Martin Duffy drove to the railway and that she would stay sitting in it while he approached men going about their various businesses. He’d ask everyone he met if they were, or had come across, Daniel Flannagan and they would treat him civilly because his only obvious talent was for civility.
They were no more than five minutes from the town when it became very clear that even a fourth best hope, surviving the trip, was a slim one. Martin Duffy had little to no skill driving anything attached to a horse, and the horse in question, Betty, noticed within seconds. She jumped this way and that, unhappy from the off, threatening to head across country unless someone did something decisive with the reins. ‘Whoa,’ cried Martin Duffy to no avail. ‘Hold up there,’ and ‘Come on, move, you stupid thing.’
It would have been a kindness not to notice, but Pearl’s nerves were as frayed as Betty’s and she found that her own profound wish was to bolt for home, ditching her useless passenger on the way. The more futile his efforts to keep Betty on the road, the more overwhelming was Pearl’s need to punish him. How dare he be so pathetic when the very least she’d hoped for was not pathetic. How dare he look so petulant. How dare he not even manage to drive a cart. She’d had so little hope and all of it had been pinned on him.
‘Dear God!’ she cried, snatching the reins when they had travelled less than a mile. ‘Give them here. And get ready to jump off and grab her if she bolts. I hope you’re going to be more use once we get there.’ She clicked Betty on and Betty did as she was bid more or less for the remaining three miles, sensing the new driver’s lack of interest in any nonsense from anyone, man or beast, but especially man. The more Pearl dwelled on the inadequacy of her part-time husband, the shorter her temper grew so that it was all she could think about, even as vehicles of all sorts threw up dust that blinded her and clogged her nose and mouth. When Martin Duffy failed to appreciate the skill with which she was controlling the wayward horse and suggested he could lead her, she snarled, ‘I doubt it.’
Unsurprisingly, Martin Duffy kept his lips buttoned and held on tight for the rest of the journey, prepared to jump but not at all confident, they both knew, of grabbing any reins. Good humour had just as read
ily deserted him. He too was glaring at the countryside and then at her, counting the moments – she could almost hear him – until he could pack up and head back to Sydney. Well too bad, she said to herself. But when eventually she brought Betty to a stop on the edge of the rumbling, squelching, noisy, shapeless, terrifying mess of mud and metal that was the railway in progress, when she clapped eyes on the tents announcing to all comers Welcome to poverty and desperation, and when she took stock of the line itself heaving with human shapes that grunted and cursed, she sighed in despair. How could she trust him to negotiate it when he was a blithering idiot? ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘Give me back the photograph and you look after the horse.’ She could barely bring herself to look at him. But then he spoke so she was obliged to.
‘That’s enough now, Miss McCleary. Quite enough. You must stop being so angry because it’s pointless. We’re here to make enquiries and you can see for yourself, it’s no place for a woman. Tell me what it is you need me to say and I’ll say it.’
Pearl blew rage and disappointment from her diaphragm, allowing her shoulders to drop and her lungs to collapse even though accepting the offer felt more like defeat than relief. She studied his face, for stupidity, arrogance, reluctance or maybe competence but found only a smile. ‘I need you to look for military men who might have come across him anywhere between here and Sydney, or possibly Ypres. He was at Ypres in ’17. I know it’s unlikely but he’s been on the road for weeks and many of these men will have been as well. One of them, some, any of them, might have crossed his path. His name is Daniel Flannagan and he started with the 19th, which was attached to the 5th brigade, but I’m not sure where they ended up.’
Martin Duffy jumped lightly from the cart. ‘Looks? Height? Distinguishing marks?’
Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband Page 13