Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband

by Barbara Toner

  ‘It’s just an old thing,’ she replied truthfully. She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve come for the file.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Martin.

  ‘We can discuss it later when you bring me the drawings,’ Maggie continued to whisper. ‘I’d like you to meet the boys.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Louisa. ‘The man’s not superhuman. And speak properly. Martin, get her stupid thing so she can leave because you and I have other business to see to.’ Since matters could only have become more uncomfortable, it was just as well they were interrupted by Miss McCleary, who knocked loudly, was admitted by Martin and who marched into the room in such a determined manner that everyone was at once on their mettle.

  Maisie Jenkins noted the look on her face, which she later described as bossy and cranky. Cousin opened door, she also noted. She failed to spot, at his elbow, Maggie, who’d followed him as he’d gone to fetch her file and was preparing to flee once she had it. Maggie, however, spotted Maisie Jenkins.

  ‘Why is Mrs Jenkins watching the house?’ she asked. Despite the arrival of Miss McCleary and the bulk of Mr Duffy blocking the doorway, she could make out the satisfaction on Mrs Jenkins’ face as she imagined such excellent gossip restoring her to Mr Stokes’ good books. ‘She looks very pleased with herself.’

  ‘Why don’t you steer her back in the direction of town and find out?’ Pearl suggested thoughtfully. ‘She can’t resist a chat.’ So Maggie slipped from the house and in the urgency of the moment the file was forgotten. ‘Now,’ said Pearl to Martin Duffy once she’d gone although they were still in the hall. ‘Down to business. Is Mrs Worthington home?’

  Her firmness of intent could easily have been mistaken for cranky. Louisa certainly heard cranky in her tone and found irritation in her own heart for the uppity housekeeper. Who was she to demand they get down to business? ‘Hello, Miss McCleary. You’ve called at a difficult time,’ she said.

  ‘Have I?’ said Pearl in surprise. ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t let me hold you up. It’s Mr Duffy I need to speak to urgently.’

  ‘If it’s urgent for him, then it’s urgent for me too,’ Louisa snapped. Martin and Pearl followed her cross little shape into the dining room, which would have smelled of sardines had not last night’s meal been taken in the kitchen, which did smell of them. ‘Everyone sit down,’ she commanded. But Martin stopped short at the door.

  ‘Maggie forgot her file,’ he said in alarm. ‘I’ll have to go after her.’ He headed back to his bedroom.

  ‘She can get it later,’ said Louisa. ‘I really won’t put up with any more O’Connell nonsense.’ When Martin Duffy hesitated she insisted, ‘I mean it.’ So he returned to the dining room. ‘Sit down, Miss McCleary.’ She placed herself at the head of the table and she tapped on it as if she were calling the rabble to order.

  ‘What file?’ Pearl asked.

  ‘BLUETT V O’CONNELL LAND DISPUTE (FINAL!). She stole it from the Mayor,’ Martin explained. ‘He’ll notice it’s missing. I’m sorry, Louisa, she needs it.’ He headed once more for the door. But Louisa’s patience had abandoned her.

  ‘Martin, sit down!’ she shouted. He sat at once. ‘It’s not a priority. I’m a priority even though everyone else has pushed in ahead of me. It isn’t fair.’ Her voice continued to rise and now contained a tremor, which she directed at Pearl. ‘Martin is living with me. I’m shouldering the whole responsibility for looking after him, so I should be given proper consideration and my problems should be properly recognised as being more serious than anyone else’s. I’ve been very tolerant …’ And here she burst into tears. Neither Pearl nor Martin, she saw though she had her head in her hands, looked surprised.

  Martin half-rose again from his chair. ‘We’ve upset her,’ he said. Through her fingers Louisa saw the housekeeper restore him to sitting.

  ‘She has a lot on her plate, that’s all.’ Pearl reached across to pat Louisa’s shoulder but Louisa shrugged the gesture off. If she wanted anyone to pat her on the shoulder it wasn’t Miss McCleary. But Miss McCleary seemed not to notice. ‘It’s what I came here to say. I’ve been thinking about the horses and what’s to be done about them and I have a plan.’ Annie McGuire, after a lifetime of dreading Pearl’s planning, might have warned Louisa to watch out but Louisa needed no such warning.

  ‘Spare me,’ she said to herself, knowing she’d be expected to be grateful. She felt a bit sick, now she thought about it. She’d woken up feeling sick, just as she woke to every new day feeling sick, because despite Martin Duffy her problems hadn’t gone away. It was the worry of the horses and the blackmail and the no money. It wasn’t the gin or the rum, even though that’s what Adelaide and Miss McCleary would say if she mentioned it. Pearl’s plan turned out to be hopeless anyway. She’d thought of it herself already, of course she had. It was unworkable. There were two gates to man but only one of her. Martin Duffy could now cover the other gate but it was still impractical.

  The suggestion was that two people should station themselves at the gates overnight and, as new horses were delivered, to scream blue murder drawing the whole neighbourhood to the property so the blackmailers would be caught red-handed. It was a joke. The whole neighbourhood was hardly a force to be reckoned with or even to have any faith in. ‘Miss McCleary,’ Louisa said sorrowfully. ‘Do you honestly think Martin and I can stay up night after night, all night, in the cold, watching and waiting and that the horse people will wait while we scream, and hang about until Adelaide pops over to see what it’s all about? Really? Do you?’

  Miss McCleary didn’t so much as blink at the sarcasm. ‘I’ll help you. We can all help you. We can take it in turns. I don’t see how else we can unmask the blackmailers when you don’t want to involve the police.’

  ‘It’s a sensible plan, Louisa,’ said Martin. ‘We don’t need to shoot or arrest anyone. We just need to identify them so we know who they are and they know we know.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the smug, increasingly odious Miss McCleary.

  Chapter Thirty

  Of course it was stupid. Pearl had no idea what anyone might sensibly do after the screaming because she hadn’t given it enough thought. She’d unveiled the plan when it was barely formed to stop Louisa crying even though, she was quite prepared to admit to herself, it was skimpy.

  Her urgent need was to keep everyone onside. She badly needed Louisa’s cooperation with the master plan she’d been grappling with since receiving the letter from Daniel. Her intention had been to explain it to both Martin Duffy and Mrs Worthington in the first instance, and eventually Mrs Nightingale and Maggie, but she’d blurted the Worthington section too early. Now it had backfired and here she was in the street with Mrs Worthington no more inclined to be sympathetic to her cause than the one-eyed man at the railway had been.

  It served her right. Annie would have said it served her right. She should have kept her lip buttoned until she was sure of what she wanted to say. It was a failing. An affliction. She should have been more aware of the others’ desperation. It was equal to her own even if theirs didn’t include a life at risk. She would have to be kinder if she wanted to put her needs first. She would have to be cleverer.

  As she hurried up Hope Street with the file under her arm, possibilities of every sort were clamouring for space in her chatter box of a head. She was no sooner through The Arch than they were interrupted by Martin Duffy at her side asking if she could spare him a few minutes because he needed her advice.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Miss McCleary,’ he said, regardless of what she could or couldn’t spare. ‘These problems you’re asking me to tackle … I’m out of my depth. They’re all so much more complicated than any of you seem to realise.’ And there it was! Shoe dropped.

  She’d advertised for a clever, brave, physically able man and Annie had selected the one man in the whole of Australia who was even less capable than Mrs Nightingale. Pearl drew a deep breath, stopped and turned. Yelling at him would be useless. Ma
king him feel even sillier than he was would not improve matters. He was going to need reassurance and encouragement if he was going to be of use to anyone, most importantly her.

  ‘Could we go somewhere we can speak in confidence?’ he asked. And she replied, even though she was carrying Maggie’s file that required urgent delivery, ‘Yes, if you make it quick.’ They hurried back towards the river and her favoured bench and, once seated, he invited her to take a look at the contents of the file she had in her lap. ‘Tell me what you make of it. I’m no expert but even I can see there’s all sorts of shenanigans in there.’

  ‘Mr Duffy, I can’t possibly look at it now. What kind of shenanigans? The result was perfectly straightforward, I thought. Mr Bluett shot Mr O’Connell. He had to pay compensation.’

  ‘But the boundary dispute was never acknowledged in court as far as I can see and the papers that proved it aren’t in here. It’s more than I can take on. Maggie thinks I can help her but I can’t even build her a chook house.’

  Pearl considered his miserable expression and struggled for sympathy over impatience but found only self-interest. ‘Anyone can build a chook house. I could build a chook house. I’ll help you build the chook house, but in the meantime I need you to come to the railway with me again. I know we’re close to him. I’ve had a letter.’

  Martin Duffy put his head in his hands. ‘She needs a good lawyer and Mrs Nightingale needs a good accountant. There is something up with the books but she needs an expert to prove it. She needs a proper audit.’

  ‘I thought you were getting advice from an expert.’

  ‘The advice was to get a proper audit.’

  They contemplated the river, which was ambling lazily towards the sea, unaware it had a hundred miles to go and so quite content. How she wanted to amble and not care about the dreadful miles ahead. ‘And your plan for the horses,’ Martin Duffy said. ‘Exactly what do you imagine we should do once we know who’s delivering them?’

  ‘I haven’t decided,’ Pearl admitted. ‘Just knowing who’s responsible is a good start.’

  ‘I think she should sell the lot for meat to Mr Stokes. He’s put in an offer.’

  ‘And where would that leave her?’ said Pearl.

  ‘Out of debt and out of horses,’ Martin Duffy replied.

  ‘But not out of blackmailers. They’d still want their money. It’s pointless.’ Even as she spoke she thought maybe it wasn’t. But Louisa’s problem was not her problem. She was perfectly happy to help solve Louisa’s problem. She just wasn’t inclined to give it her full attention now because her own problem required her full attention.

  This is what her head was trying to explain to her conscience, which knew very well that she had taken charge because being in charge suited her best and that being in charge involved responsibilities she couldn’t ignore. ‘Enough!’ cried a voice from deep within her bones. ‘I’m tired.’ As if fatigue were a proper excuse for a bossy person to turn her back on responsibilities.

  ‘You’re in charge,’ Martin Duffy reminded her. Then added, ‘I might be a disappointment to you, Miss McCleary, but the truth is no one man could solve all the difficulties you have here.’

  ‘Probably not, Mr Duffy, but the big advantage even a man like you has over the three of us is that you are listened to where we are not because we’re women. Men listen to other men. It’s as simple and as annoying as that. If we were men, I’m sure we could tackle our own problems without requiring your services. And even not being men, we could certainly build a chook house.’

  How this went down with Mr Duffy wasn’t immediately clear to Pearl and nor did she care. He jumped up from the bench and strode to the river, apparently to consider his position. It was the briefest of considerations. He’d no sooner reached the water’s edge than he was back. ‘If you want to terminate our arrangement, it’s fine by me,’ he said. But Pearl didn’t want any such thing, now it was offered. She wanted him to come to the railway with her.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ she said, summoning good humour. ‘You’ve made great headway. If I’m impatient, it’s just with the situation.’ She stood. ‘Mrs Nightingale will be wondering where I am. Will you take this to Maggie?’ She held the file out to him but he didn’t take it.

  ‘You have a fine brain, Miss McCleary. I spotted it straight after I noticed your beautiful eyes. Couldn’t you have a quick look at it first? She mightn’t need a lawyer if you can make sense of it all.’ And Pearl, despite herself, was flattered because she did have a better brain than his, and even if it was impudent of him to notice her eyes he wasn’t the first man to do so.

  ‘I’ll look at it,’ she agreed. ‘And we’ll go to the railway first thing tomorrow. Watch your step between now and then,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Mrs Jenkins is keeping an eye on you.’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Jenkins?’ he called after her but all she did was wave in response.

  Mrs Jenkins, mistress of the hams, wife of a drunk, lover of the grocer, was put out. Having believed she’d struck gold in young Miss O’Connell’s offer to walk with her as far as her turn-off, she’d realised too late that she should have been back at The Arch. ‘I often call in on Mrs Worthington,’ Maggie had explained innocently. ‘I think she gets lonely.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Maisie Jenkins had pointed out with a sly nudge. ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Martin Something,’ said Maggie. ‘But I’d better run, Mrs Jenkins. I’m late for work.’ She’d pulled ahead of the wily cook and hurried through the town realising too late that she didn’t have her file with her and that discovery of its loss could result in her ruin.

  Her brain, like Pearl’s, was quick and decisive, if not as honed by experience. Three possible courses of action occurred to her in rapid succession: report for work, take ill, go home and produce the file next day from under a cushion; turn back immediately, recover the file, arrive at work late and risk the wrath of Mrs Mayberry for lack of punctuality; or go home at once, send message that she was ill, keep the file and never go back to work again because her husband Martin Duffy was taking her case to court where he would argue with all the vigour and cleverness of a city lawyer. The last of the options was by far the most appealing but the truth she couldn’t avoid was that the romance was in its early stages and she wasn’t sure how well versed in law her fiancé-to-be was.

  She turned and ran as hard as her skirt allowed back to the Worthingtons’, gasping only as she passed Maisie Jenkins still trundling towards the town. ‘Can’t stop. Forgot something!’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Louisa’s door was slightly open when Maggie arrived, so she entered without knocking. ‘Mrs Worthington? Martin? Anyone home?’ she called as she reached the kitchen. Mrs Worthington was most certainly at home. She was, however, in no position to answer because there she was, head thrown back, eyes closed, collapsed in the arms of Captain Nightingale, who was moaning, ‘Louisa, ah, Louisa.’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Worthington,’ Maggie said anyway. ‘I came back for my file.’

  It meant nothing to Captain Nightingale, who whipped around wild-eyed. ‘Fetch a doctor!’ he barked.

  The scene was compelling enough to justify questions if not comment but Maggie neither argued nor commented because this was Captain Nightingale, who had never addressed her civilly in the whole of her life. She said, ‘Right you are,’ but she didn’t do as he’d asked. She hurried across the road to summon Miss McCleary, the one person she trusted to deal with a situation that was delicate, however you looked at it.

  As luck would have it, the door wasn’t opened by Miss McCleary but by Mrs Nightingale, impatiently waiting for her housekeeper who’d popped across the road for a minute and that had been half an hour ago. ‘Why do you want her?’

  ‘It’s an emergency. Mrs Worthington has fainted and only Captain Nightingale is there to look after her.’

  ‘What do you mean, Maggie? Why has she fainted? Where has she fainted? Captain Nightingale
is in the study.’

  ‘She’s in her kitchen, I don’t know why she fainted and it’s definitely Captain Nightingale who caught her.’

  ‘But where’s Miss McCleary? And where’s Martin Duffy? Miss McCleary went over to see him.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maggie again, in such a tone that the two women saw suspicion clouding the other’s eyes but of what, neither was prepared to convey to their lips. Certainly Adelaide’s husband should not have been in any position to catch a fainting tart of a woman who ought not to have been entertaining him on her own without first getting the permission of his wife. Certainly it was very odd that Miss McCleary and the part-time husband were both not where they ought to have been, and really had they been where they ought to have been, then the circumstance of the tart and the husband would never have arisen. Eyes can convey that many words between blinks. When Adelaide asked Maggie to stay and mind the baby while she ran across the road to see what she could do, both knew more or less what the other was thinking.

  It was fortunate for Louisa that Pearl appeared from her rendezvous by the river just as Adelaide entered the Worthington gate. ‘Where have you been?’ Adelaide yelled at her. Definitely yelled, Pearl noticed. ‘Louisa has collapsed. Lucky for her, Marcus was there when it happened.’

  ‘What kind of collapsed?’ asked Pearl, ignoring the question when the statement was so much less complicated. ‘Has a doctor been called?’

  ‘It’s just happened,’ said Adelaide. They hurried into the house and into Louisa’s bedroom where Marcus had placed her on the bed and where she was returning to consciousness and wanting nothing more than to be alone.

  To her horror, the house was now full of people demanding to know what was wrong with her. ‘I fainted,’ she murmured. ‘The heat.’

  ‘What heat? It’s mild. Where’s my husband?’ Adelaide found concern just beyond reach.

  ‘I was hot in the kitchen.’ Louisa struggled to get to her feet as Marcus appeared carrying a cup of water.