Or was it he who relieved her of Kate, saying mildly, ‘I fear the child is a little heavy for you, Miss Waring.’
Odd things seemed to happen to her perception of reality whenever Mr Tom Dilhorne walked over her horizon. Oddest of all was that she spoke to him so freely and boldly—she who had blanched and stuttered whenever the officers of the garrison had tried to talk to her.
Tom declined Mrs Cooke’s offer of a cup of freshly brewed tea, pleading another engagement, and took himself and his magnificence away. Hester really could not accommodate herself to the sight of his splendid clothes.
‘Well!’ exclaimed Mrs Cooke, when he had gone and Hester was examining the books which he had brought. ‘What was all that about, Miss Waring?’
But Miss Waring could not tell her.
Tom walked home with the memory of Hester kneeling among the chickens—home, because despite what he had said to her, he had no other engagement, deviousness being as natural to him as breathing. A monstrous idea was beginning to take shape in his brain. It was an idea born of his loss of Mary Mahoney and the news that very day that his housekeeper was giving him notice.
He saw Hester with the child again, and remembered her evident affection for the little ones she had been teaching when he had seen her in the classroom. He remembered also the sudden bright eye which she had turned on him in the middle of their ridiculous conversation, which she had obviously enjoyed as much as he had. The desire to provoke her, to see her spring to life, to hear her ripostes to the nonsense he so gravely treated her to, grew on him each time that he met her. Only her thin, pinched face still troubled him—for surely she could afford good food now.
That’s it! I do believe that the poor creature would be quite pretty if she got some good food down her, was given a little affection and some new clothes. She’s already beginning to display much more spirit since she became a schoolteacher. She’s not my style, of course, being little and dark instead of big and fair like Mary Mahoney and the others. But what of that? I’m not in any danger of losing my heart to her.
What was it Mary had said to him before they parted? Marry a lady. Well, Hester Waring’s a lady, though she won’t be if she falls any further. But no lady of the first flight would marry me. She’s a sensible little thing, clever, too, by the ingenious way in which she answers me when I tease her. I thought that she was capable when we interviewed her. Yes, she’d make an excellent housekeeper, and a wife who would know what’s what, the right fork to use and what to say and do. There’s a thought!
But the idea of getting into bed with any man, especially me, would send her scurrying away like a hare. She nearly turned and ran when she saw me today, for all her brave face. Her dreadful father might have made her frightened of me, but, judging by the way she looks at them, he’s made her scared witless of any man she meets.
A slow grin spread over his face. Well, I know a trick or two, and one of them might bring Hester Waring to a place she might not have fancied originally!
Chapter Four
‘I want a word with you, Jardine.’
Jardine rose and bowed as Tom entered. He was a conscientious man of indeterminate age, not an ex-felon, who held a number of small appointments under the Governor.
All of these offices brought him into contact with a large number of people in Sydney and Tom found it useful to talk to him when there was anyone or anything about whom he thought that he needed information. He was careful not to appear to bribe him, but Jardine had more sense than to enquire who it was who left the occasional bag of groceries or the odd bottle of whisky propped up against his back door.
Jardine had grown used to Tom’s ways, and he wondered what information he needed now. He was surprised when, after nodding his assent to Tom’s request, Tom said brusquely, ‘Hester Waring. I take it that her salary is being paid promptly?’
Jardine knew better than to bridle. ‘Of course—why do you ask?’
‘Because the girl looks more thin and harried than ever. She’s still not getting enough to eat. I should have thought she’d be plumper by now on what we’re giving her. Where’s the money going? I know it’s not going to Mrs Cooke. She’s getting that room for a peppercorn’s rent.’
So here was something Tom Dilhorne did not know. Probably because he had never cared enough before what Hester Waring was doing.
‘There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,’ Jardine began.
‘There is?’ Tom was satiric. ‘I should like to know what it is.’
‘You are aware that Jem Larkin does a little business in buying up debts—’ He got no further. Tom was there before him.
‘By God, you’re telling me that Larkin is dunning her to pay her father’s debts—and she’s fool enough to pay them.’
‘Exactly, and Larkin’s upped the interest since we appointed her—or so I’ve heard.’
Tom felt an anger which he could not explain. How had Hester Waring’s plight come to affect him so deeply?
‘Why was I not told of this?’
Jardine thought that his superior’s concern was excessive for a man whose own moneylending activities, on a scale much larger than Larkin’s, were notorious.
‘I had no notion that it would be of interest to you.’
‘Everything interests me,’ said Tom shortly. ‘Particularly this. So that’s why she still looks as though she’s not had anything decent to eat in years. We’ll see about that.’
Robert Jardine was to claim afterwards that he was the first person in Sydney to become aware that Tom Dilhorne was taking a shine to Hester Waring—how else could this untypical behaviour be explained? And he knew what Tom was going to do. Buy up Fred Waring’s debts and then cancel them.
‘It’s the Board’s Christmas Party next week, for all the teachers in the different schools. You can make sure that she has something to eat there,’ Jardine offered.
‘So it is,’ said Tom, struck. He would not normally have chosen to take part in such innocent junketing but, what with being lonely since Mary’s departure from his life, he really needed some other interests.
It’s nothing to do with Miss Waring herself, he told himself untruthfully. Yes, he would go along to see that she had enough to eat for once. He might also try to provoke her into the charming liveliness which she had displayed among the chickens, and he would also pursue his monstrous idea—which became less and less monstrous every time that he thought about it.
First he would buy Fred’s debts from Larkin. He was not to tell Hester who had bought them, and Tom intended to destroy them in front of Larkin, so that Larkin should not think that he, Tom Dilhorne, was reduced to screwing widows and orphans, particularly half-starved mice like Hester Waring.
Jardine watched him stride off in some amusement. Really, the man was unpredictable. First he bullied the Board into employing the girl, then he hung around the schoolroom being snubbed by her, then he took the books to her himself, instead of leaving it for him to do. Next he complained that she wasn’t getting enough to eat, and now he was off to pay her father’s debts, and finally, having already informed Jardine that he was giving the Christmas Party a miss, he was going to turn up to see that she had enough to eat there!
If it had been any other than cold-hearted Tom Dilhorne, he would have said that he was sweet on the girl. Which, thinking of what she looked like and Tom’s previous taste in women—Mary Mahoney had been a luscious blonde piece—was more than improbable, it was total nonsense.
Well, he, Jardine, might stir the pot a little if he got the chance. Poor Miss Waring deserved some excitement in her drab life. The right word in her ear and anything might happen.
Parties were rare enough in Hester Waring’s drab life that the prospect of attending the one which the School Board gave each year on Christmas Eve could not but command her whole attention.
Money still being short, she turned to one of her mother’s old black dresses, went to Lucy Wright for help and trimmed it with some rather
nice lace which Lucy, taking one look at Hester and the dress, mendaciously said that she had no use for and helped Hester to sew it on.
Her husband came in while they were so engaged and gave poor Hester what her Mentor called ‘his look’. Why are you such a persistent hanger-on of my over-generous wife? it said. He was undoubtedly responsible for Hester seeing so little of Lucy these days.
Captain Parker was with him and he was his usual kind self. This normally threw Hester into a fluster. She had always found his fresh good looks, blond hair and strong athletic body disturbing, particularly since she knew with some despair that he was kind to her only because he was sorry for her.
Today, however, she found him as handsome as ever, but very young and slightly gauche. His conversation was really rather dull and uninspired, no ridiculous jokes delivered in a way which brought on the giggles. This revision of her opinion of him came as a great surprise to her—ever since she had first met him he had been her masculine beau ideal.
Perhaps it was meeting older men like…well…like Tom Dilhorne. Not that he was her masculine beau ideal, far from it, but there was no doubt that his impudently cool manner made Captain Parker seem rather callow.
Consequently, her awe of him gone, she was more forthcoming with him than usual, if not to say vivacious, when he asked what was occupying the two girls so much after looking dubiously at Hester’s drab gown with which she and Lucy were struggling.
She stared him straight in the eye for once and said airily, ‘Oh, Captain Parker, I am going to the most important party of the festive season and Lucy is helping me to trim my splendid new dress.’
He looked rather surprised and asked her, ‘What party is that, Hester?’
‘Oh, it’s much too important for you and Frank to be invited,’ she replied giddily and untruthfully. ‘It’s the one which the School Board gives to all the teachers, and only really tremendous swells like Mr Tom Dilhorne get invited to it.’
It occurred to her that Tom seemed to be getting into her thoughts and her conversation a lot lately, and she watched Frank’s look of distaste at her presence, and her light-minded conversation, grow deeper at the sound of his name.
‘Are you sure you ought to go, Hester?’ he said. ‘I know you work for them, but from what you say the people whom you will be going to meet there are not quite the thing.’
Hester became totally reckless. ‘Well, you see, Frank, as I’m sure you appreciate, and Stephen, too—’ this was the first time she had ever used Captain Parker’s Christian name ‘—I am really not quite the thing, either, these days. And they do say that the food they give us is really rather good, and I don’t want to miss that. People who are quite the thing don’t seem to offer me very much to eat!’
There was a ghastly silence after this home truth was shot at them with such panache.
What can be the matter with me? Hester thought, surprised by her own daring. Where am I getting this dreadful impulse from to say these terrible things aloud to everyone instead of just thinking them?
Now I find myself doing it all the time. I must go before Lucy throws me over completely. As it is, Frank will be telling her not to have me again. Not that she’ll take much notice of that. He’s properly under her thumb, if I don’t mistake. And why on earth did I ever think so much of Captain Parker? He’s just an ordinary, nice, kind…boy. It must be talking to Tom Dilhorne that’s making me so awful. I seem to start thinking dreadful things like this after every meeting with him. There must be something catching about his constant teasing.
All the time that this was running through Hester’s fevered brain, she was saying goodbye to Lucy, picking up the horrible gown, paying impudent farewells to Frank and Stephen, who stared at her, aghast, and taking herself out the front door.
There was a moment’s silence before all three began talking at once. ‘Well,’ from Lucy, ‘Oh dear,’ from Captain Parker, who had been flattered by Hester’s timid adoration, so markedly missing today, and ‘Good God!’ from Frank. ‘She’s plainer than ever and cheeky with it. I shan’t have her visiting you again, Luce.’
‘Oh, yes, you will,’ said Lucy. ‘She’s no one else, poor thing.’
She paused, suddenly inspired. ‘You don’t think she’s really hungry, do you? Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with her. Delirious from hunger. I should have offered her something. I never thought to wonder what she is living on now that Fred is dead. Oh, dear!’
‘No, Luce, it’s all those commoners she’s mixing with,’ said Stephen dismally. ‘She used to be such a biddable little thing, if plain. Now she’s plainer than ever and a bit of a shrew as well.’
He was relieved that his pity had never taken him so far as to say anything which could have been construed as an offer of marriage.
Hester walked home in an ecstasy of liberated wickedness. For the moment she had no regrets. They would probably come later. All her past life she had been a timid child who had barely raised her voice. Everyone had made it quite clear to her that what she might have to say was of little interest or consequence.
Her mother’s most common expression when she had looked at her at all had been one of distaste. Fred, her father, had treated her as merely a convenient servant, very convenient, since even a servant would not have stood for the treatment which he had meted out to Hester.
Well, she had raised her voice today, and made her presence felt, too. She was so taken with her own naughtiness that, when she turned the corner into the lane where she lived, she bumped into Tom Dilhorne before she knew that he was there.
He stepped back with some surprise and a little amusement as he registered her defiant air.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Waring.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Dilhorne,’ she almost carolled at him.
He looked gravely at the disgraceful gown which she was clutching to herself.
‘Busy, Miss Waring?’
The giddiness which had overtaken her at Lucy’s overwhelmed her again. She stared rudely at her tormentor. Well, her inward voice was right. The ogre was a man who made Captain Parker look juvenile and unformed, but he was an ogre, nonetheless.
‘Yes, you might say that, Mr Dilhorne. I have been trimming this extravagant dress for the Board’s party.’
‘You intend going there, then,’ he said, his mouth twitching. The moment she showed spirit she was transformed. He was right. There was some real, red-hot passion roiling around there beneath the sober exterior.
‘Yes, you might say that I intend to favour it with my presence.’
‘Very gratifying, Miss Waring. I look forward to seeing you there.’
‘Do you, Mr Dilhorne? You surprise me. I thought you more used to less, shall we say, decorous gatherings!’
Hester unfurled this piece of insolence at him as though she were setting up a banner. Let him make what he would of that!
He was gravity itself. ‘On the contrary, Miss Waring. I shall attend tomorrow with the keenest interest.’
He bowed. She bowed back. Damn his impudence for looking at her dreadful gown with such a satirical eye. Well, she would wear it tomorrow, and she would try to show a little more decorum than she had exhibited today. One might almost think that she had been drinking.
Tom knew that she had not been drinking, and he knew the delirium of despair and starvation when he saw it. And she’s growing up, he thought. I wonder if she realised how she looked at me once or twice? He wondered, too, what had roused her so. Well, he might find out tomorrow. But Hester would never tell him that the spark which had freed her had been ignited by himself.
School Board parties were not, as Hester could have guessed, the most exciting of affairs. But, to her starved senses this, the only one which she was ever to attend, seemed almost more than she could bear. She knew that, in a room full of not very well-dressed men and women, she was the worst dressed of them all. Even Lucy’s lace could not save her gown.
On the other hand there was food, lots of it, so th
at her mouth watered and her empty stomach clenched. She forced herself to be ladylike, to take only a little on her plate when it was handed around, and to eat it as though it were not manna in the desert to the starving Israelites.
Tom was at the top table and he watched with pity her efforts to disguise her hunger. He had dressed magnificently for the occasion, wearing a waistcoat with peacocks embroidered on it, and a black pearl in his cravat. He wondered whom he was trying to impress.
Hester was in a very different mood from the day before. The food pleased her, but the euphoria of her visit to Lucy had worn off, and she was overcome with shame at the memory of her behaviour, not only to Lucy, but also to Tom Dilhorne.
Whatever must he have thought of her? Recalling her last remark to him made her go hot all over. She could not imagine what had provoked it.
If anyone had told her that, deep down, she was becoming sexually attracted to Tom Dilhorne of all people, she would have denied it with her last breath. Even the revelation that Captain Parker’s attraction had dimmed had not revealed the truth to her. Nor did her shortened breath and the feeling of excitement which swept over her when he approached her after the meal had ended and the company was relaxing over a little, a very little, strong drink.
Hester immediately became prey to the most unnatural feelings. It was almost as though she were wearing no clothes at all! A strange odd fluttering started in the base of her stomach. Nothing in her short life had prepared her for such sensations, and she feared that she was sickening for a fever, she was so aware of her whole body—and, what was worse, of his.
Everything about him seemed so bright and clear, his sandy-blond hair with its slight wave, his deep blue eyes, the strange twist of his mouth which betrayed the sardonic humour with which he so often spoke to her, the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, the length of his legs, his height—he had to bend slightly to speak to her.
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