Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-time Husband

by Barbara Toner

  Doctor Pinkerton would not hear of Pearl going anywhere. Her painful burns were treated, her arm was placed in protective custody but more worrying, he said, was the pace of her racing heart. ‘You’ve strained it. You need bed rest. No visitors.’

  Daniel Flannagan and Joe Fletcher both called to enquire after her but both were turned away because of her heart.

  It was true. It was a mess. Her arm ached, her burns throbbed and her head contained so many thoughts, it would certainly explode if she added more. But her heart just didn’t know which way to turn. Its choices were dread, hope and longing. Complicating them was love for the man who would certainly despise her for not having been truthful about the man she didn’t love, and concern for the man she didn’t love who would despise her for the same reason.

  Adelaide could have reassured her. Of all the party that night, she was the only one who knew exactly where she stood in regard to the man professing his love for her. He’d marched into that hospital, taken her in his arms and whispered, ‘I will never doubt you again.’ He’d given the baby a pat on the head.

  She had taken a step out of his arms and had looked at him long and hard before saying, ‘Thank you, Marcus,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure that I will never doubt you again.’

  There’s enduring love, Adelaide might have told Pearl, and there’s the love that can take only so much. Whack it too often too long and it bends out of shape so that what’s left is no longer recognisable as the thing it had seemed to be. This isn’t to say it can’t turn into something else that might become worthwhile, but adjustments need to be made. ‘You still have a home,’ Adelaide said to her husband by way of consolation. ‘I’m just not sure we still have a marriage.’

  How decisive she had become. How clear thinking. They left the hospital together, and together they waved to the well wishers who’d gathered outside and who remarked how wonderful they looked together. But once they were alone, once their front door closed on them, the shadow of what had been took all manner of shapes until Marcus said, ‘I need you, Adelaide.’ She replied that she couldn’t live with such anger as he’d shown since he’d been back. He said he knew. He hated his anger. He asked if they could pick up the pieces and she said she wasn’t sure. First he needed to fill in those that were missing. ‘You just took off,’ she said.

  He told his story simply. He didn’t touch on the fear, self-loathing, anger, night terrors or the kindness of the Fletcher brothers and Daniel Flannagan because he was ashamed of them. All he provided was the sequence of events.

  He and Cocky Watson had been ten, maybe twelve miles along the road towards Myrtle Grove when a man waving an ex-Army rifle had leapt in front of them yelling at them to stop. Cocky was all for running him down but Marcus knew a returned soldier out of his mind when he saw one. He’d asked for a lift to Myrtle Grove. An educated fellow, Marcus had guessed. When Cocky had grumbled to the soldier that he didn’t need a gun to get a lift, he’d apologised. He’d bought the rifle from a bloke he’d met on the road and he’d been grateful for it. You never knew who you were hailing down, he’d said, and he was right there. He’d introduced himself: Lance Corporal Daniel Flannagan, lately of the 19th but formerly of the 5th. He’d gone to sleep the minute they’d moved off.

  What had roused him was Sergeant Fletcher coming from nowhere, galloping alongside at breakneck pace and ordering them to stop in the name of the law. Flannagan had jumped from the cart and run. Fletcher had had no hesitation in shooting him and bringing him down. Cocky had taken advantage of the distraction to urge the horses on. ‘Stop!’ Fletcher had bellowed. ‘Bring that cart to a halt.’ Marcus had grabbed the reins and, in the process, pushed Cocky from the cart. Cocky had tried to run, so, Marcus, seeing Fletcher occupied with Flannagan, had given chase himself and easily caught him. Fletcher had loaded both fugitives back onto the cart and Marcus had driven them to Myrtle Grove with Harry Fletcher riding alongside.

  ‘Weren’t you terrified?’ asked Adelaide.

  ‘No,’ said Marcus.

  The funny thing was that all Fletcher did was take a statement from Cocky and then he’d let him go saying he had what he needed from him for the time being. Confirmation that would hold good in a court of law.

  ‘What happened to the shot soldier?’ Adelaide wanted to know.

  ‘A doctor patched him up. And here’s a thing,’ said Marcus to his stranger of a wife. ‘Flannagan was with Frank O’Connell when he died in France. Not in Broken Hill after all. In Ypres fighting for his country and dying for his country. A hero, Flannagan says. Took a bullet for him.’

  Tears filled Captain Nightingale’s eyes. His soft-hearted wife patted his arm. He patted the hand patting his arm. ‘Are we going to be all right, Ade?’ he asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Daniel Flannagan was the source of much conjecture in the days that followed. He’d been shot in the leg but not in France. He’d been captured by Sergeant Fletcher but in error. He was staying with Joe Fletcher, which meant he was an investigator of some sort. Constable McDermott confirmed it. ‘Sort of,’ he said. He appeared to know Miss McCleary but was not her cousin, though some insisted he was the cousin who’d been expected but he’d been waylaid by the pretend cousin Liffey, who had reported him to the police for a crime he had not committed. Had Norah Quirk been in town the story might have been even wilder.

  Daniel himself kept his head down as he dealt with one thing at a time. He telephoned Beattie to say he was alive, in good health, good spirits but no danger, that he’d seen Pearl and they would both be home soon. He said no more because there was no more to be said. Pearl was in the best possible hands, but twenty-four hours after the fire, he still hadn’t seen her.

  His most urgent need was to fulfil the promise he’d made to Frank O’Connell. With the help of the Fletchers and the folder Maggie had included in the documents Pearl had taken to them, his hunt for the dead man’s family had finally come to an end. It had been even more tortuous than the dying Frank had suggested.

  Frank O’Donnell as Daniel had known him to be. Why he’d enlisted as O’Donnell and not O’Connell was anyone’s guess. It might have been deliberate, it might have been a mistake, but either way, it was all he’d known of the man, apart from the fact that he came from Prospect, he had children and they had been cruelly wronged. The package he’d pressed into Daniel’s hands had been addressed simply to My Children. It could be delivered only if justice had been done and their birthright restored to them. Not before. They had suffered too much disappointment in their lives already for them to learn their father was dead and the land he had lost would never be theirs.

  It was Father Kelly who’d told him there was no Frank O’Donnell in Prospect. There was a Frank O’Connell, but Frank O’Connell hadn’t been seen for three years and was said to be in Broken Hill. His children continued to live in the family home but the father was gone, for good apparently. Daniel had made his way from Prospect to Broken Hill but found no evidence of a Frank O’Connell or a Frank O’Donnell ever having been there. He’d been on the road back to Father Kelly when he’d shared a campfire with men claiming with a laugh to be bushrangers, who turned out not to be bushrangers but who, after a large amount of rum, boasted of stealing supplies from the Army for a rogue trader in Prospect.

  The coincidence had been too great to ignore. It had been a small step in his imagination from rogue trader to fiend without a conscience but regardless of that, it had been safer than not under the circumstances to throw in his lot with the thieves. He’d stayed with them long enough to confirm that his imagination had been spot on. Archie Stokes, the middleman, had a fearsome boss. Harry Fletcher had laughed when Daniel had explained it to him, but the leads he’d been able to provide had been invaluable. In the long run, they’d led to Baby Worthington.

  The morning after the fire, he made his way to the O’Connell house, where he found Maggie and her brothers pale and shaken and
as nervous as kittens. The horror of the day before had taken its toll. ‘Who are you?’ asked Ed, still fully expecting to be arrested for burning the shop down even though everyone knew that Mrs Murdoch had. Maggie appeared in the doorway behind him.

  ‘You must be Maggie,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m Daniel Flannagan. I fought alongside your father in Ypres.’

  ‘Ypres,’ repeated Maggie dumbly. ‘When did he go there? He never said he was going there. Where is he now?’ But she knew already. She saw it in Daniel Flannagan’s eyes. She put her hand to her mouth because sobs were rising in her throat.

  ‘Dad’s dead, Dad’s dead!’ screamed Ed. ‘Al, Dad’s dead.’ He ran back into the house, whimpering like a kicked puppy, then he ran back to the door again. ‘How would you know? Why do you know? We don’t know you. Go away. Go away.’ But Maggie was asking Daniel in and closing the door behind him so their grief could be contained, even if it was grief for a father they’d long ago decided wasn’t worth the bother. Maggie made a grab for Ed to hug him but he kicked her away and ran to his room, where he crawled under the bed.

  ‘He needs to think,’ said Maggie. ‘I need to think. Al?’ she called. ‘Where are you?’ But he was under the bed as well. She made tea mechanically, moving from sideboard to stove to cupboard to table in deepest, darkest sorrow. She sat at the table and waved to Daniel to sit as well. ‘How did he die?’ she asked.

  ‘He died thinking of you,’ Daniel said. It wasn’t what he’d have said a week ago. But he now believed it to be true. Tears trickled from Maggie’s eyes and down her nose.

  ‘He should have let us know,’ she said.

  ‘He should have,’ Daniel agreed. ‘But he couldn’t.’ He handed her the package. A letter fell from it. She opened it and read it then she called to the boys to come and hear it because it would bring them comfort. She read it through gushing tears.

  Darling children, it said. I am sorry not to be coming back to you. I hope you will forgive me. I wanted to make it up to you for so many failures and disappointments, so much weakness and so much folly. I don’t know who will bring you this package but whoever it is will get you back the land I lost and which is rightfully yours. Be brave and honest. Your affectionate, Dad.

  ‘What does he mean, Maggie?’ asked Ed, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘How will you do that, Mr Flannagan?’ Maggie asked. ‘My father couldn’t manage it and I haven’t been able to.’

  Daniel shifted in his seat but said without hesitating, ‘I can prove you own the land your father says is yours.’

  ‘You need the papers to prove it.’

  ‘I have them.’

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘They were given to me by Joe Fletcher,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Where did he get them?’

  ‘They were posted to him by someone who knew where to send them. I know they’re the ones you need because they’re clearly marked as official proof of ownership. The person who sent them wanted them to be returned to you because an injustice had been done that needed correcting.’ He could tell her no more because he knew no more. The Mayor hadn’t wanted to admit his treachery, just to be shot of it. ‘Someone stole the papers for reasons that aren’t clear, kept them, then regretted it. You now have proof that the 400 acres your father said were yours, are yours.’ And that was it, in a nutshell.

  Frank O’Connell, Daniel was able to show, had spotted the anomaly in the land registry and had used all of his wife’s money to buy the unclaimed 400 acres. The sale papers were tendered to the court but had gone missing, and Larry Murdoch had signed a statement saying to the best of his knowledge there had never been any sale to the O’Connells, who had been his clients for many years. That was the history as he understood it. There was possibly more to be made of the documents in the file. ‘I’d like to study it properly. May I keep it?’

  ‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ll keep it, thanks. If you want to read it, you can read it here.’

  Chapter Fifty-six

  As the days passed, the town began to reflect and it very soon decided in the privacy of its porches, kitchens, church steps or wherever else it congregated, that if Adelaide Nightingale, Louisa Worthington, Maggie O’Connell and Pearl McCleary hadn’t advertised for a part-time husband, Nightingales would never have burned down. If Pearl McCleary hadn’t turned up when she did, they would still be privy to its loveliness. It felt sullied by the loss. Of course this wasn’t what it had agreed on the night of the fire but this is what it decided with hindsight.

  The four respectable ladies didn’t care one way or the other. They gathered the remnants of their pasts about them and extracted what they needed to proceed to the next bit because whatever the next bit held, it was far removed from where the last bit had begun. Maggie, for instance, now a woman of property, found herself adjusting to this new view of herself. She had land but she had no money. She devoted her days to deciding how best to turn one into the other. She spent pleasant hours with Daniel Flannagan examining all her possibilities, as delightful a pastime as she’d had since rebuilding the chook house.

  Louisa was comfortable in Sydney. Her house in Prospect was boarded up under the supervision of Captain Nightingale, who’d been encouraged by his wife to set aside lingering resentment. The horses, for so many months a feature of life Beyond The Arch, had been removed by Sergeant Fletcher and returned to the Army. Adelaide had sweetly written to assure her she wasn’t to worry because her neighbours would keep an eye on things for her and she had replied, saying thank you, could Adelaide please go to her bedroom and pack her green floral blouse, her grey skirt with the black trim, the cream crepe blouse and her pretty black shoes with the red strap, which she now realised she should have brought with her because Sydney demanded a different wardrobe from Prospect.

  Louisa wrote propped up on the dear little day bed Annie McGuire had arranged for her in the sunroom and here she spent many happy hours. Beattie, so much happier and healthier since she’d spoken to her brother, waited on her hand and foot even though Annie had taken the child aside more times than she could count to tell her that Mrs Worthington wasn’t sick, just having a baby and really she should do more things for herself because once the baby was born, she’d only have herself to rely on.

  This thought seemed not remotely to trouble Louisa, pretty as a picture with her hair curling sweetly about her forehead and cheeks, which were fuller now she no longer threw up the contents of everything she put into her stomach before lunch. Quite honestly, she confided in Adelaide, she hadn’t been this contented in years. She loved corresponding. There was always so much to tell even from this tiny house in Bondi. Did Adelaide know that the Mayberrys were in Sydney? They were staying for a month so she’d had to see them because she’d been spending time occasionally with William, who was now something important in the Ministry of Defence. He appeared not to be engaged to anyone despite what Baby had said. Horrible Baby, as Louisa had known all along, but out of her mind, which explained everything. She was going to have lunch with all the Mayberrys at the weekend. Why not? He was the Mayor, even if his wife was the silliest thing on two legs, and there wasn’t even the faintest hint of a bump that she needed to hide.

  To Pearl she wrote, yes thank you very much, she was quite comfortable in the room that had once been hers though the wallpaper was awful, wasn’t it? Mrs McGuire was kind and thoughtful and Beattie a complete sweetheart now she was no longer Princess Gloomy. When, incidentally, did Daniel intend to return to Sydney? Soon? She couldn’t wait to meet him. By the way, Martin Duffy was here only yesterday and locked in the front room with Mrs McGuire for ages. How funny, she wrote, that she might have married him. He was such a boy. Not her type at all.

  Adelaide was almost as content. She continued to maintain some distance from her husband because trust takes time to recover. But she had forged strong bonds with Maggie and Pearl, whom she continued to call Miss McCleary, and she looked to the future with confidence. ‘When the shop is u
p and running, we’ll ask young Maggie to manage it for us. What do you think?’ Adelaide said to Pearl, who was writing to Louisa. ‘I truly believe she has the makings of a manager in her.’ Adelaide once again looked with kindness on the whole world because this was her habit and so she was the joy she had always been to everyone who knew her.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Pearl’s left arm was still out of action, her burns were still covered but her calm was restored, to all intents and purposes. Intents and purposes are the same as appearances. Pearl wasn’t calm. Her injuries were enough to prevent her from tackling any household duties other than singing to the baby and so she wrote to Louisa and to Annie and to Beattie and then she found she was so agitated she wanted to scream. Nothing in her future had been resolved.

  There was no question of her leaving Prospect even if the reason for her being there had been found alive and well and Beattie delighted to have him so. To begin with she was unable to travel and even if she could travel, where would she go, now that Louisa was occupying her room. There was also the matter of Adelaide, desperate for her to stay on in the household as something. ‘I know you’re not a housekeeper. Is Freddie too young for a governess? Or you could be my companion.’ But the truth was, if Pearl left Prospect, she would be walking away from the only man in the world who had ever filled her sleeping and waking moments with longing.

  ‘He’s so much more handsome than you let me think he was. And so attentive. Will you marry in Sydney?’ If Adelaide broached the subject of Daniel Flannagan once a day she broached it a dozen times, but all Pearl wanted was to shout from the rooftops that she couldn’t imagine anything worse. He was a good man, he was clever and he seemed to have found common sense in France. One day he might make a fine lawyer but he wasn’t for her. The thought of him kissing her made her feel sick. Nothing about his body drew her to him and if deceit was a sin of the flesh she had committed when she accepted his proposal of marriage, then a sinner she certainly was.