Hester fixed him with a basilisk eye. ‘That is not it at all, Mr Dilhorne. Of course we enjoyed it. We enjoyed it so much that we were overset for two days. That is not the point. The point is that you bought up all my father’s remaining debts and destroyed them. By what right did you do that, and for what reason?’
She ran out of breath.
He pulled up a chair opposite to her, sat in it, and leaned forward, his mouth twitching. ‘Well, I might have thought that you would like to buy your own port and plum pudding in future.’
He was now so near to her that she could see the tiny laughter lines on his face, the strength of the hands which lay in his lap, and could catch the scent of a clean man, so unlike the sour smell of her late father in his last days. Her indignation began to dissolve, her own mouth began to twitch. Her sense of humour, of the ridiculous, long hidden beneath oppression, drudgery and neglect, began to assert itself as before in their impossible conversations. His impudent refusal to come to the point had its charms for her.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Mr Dilhorne. How in the world did we come to be talking about plum puddings?’
‘I believe that it was you who introduced the topic, Miss Waring.’
‘Then it was very wrong of me,’ she wailed. ‘Oh, why will you not be serious?’
‘Because you have been serious long enough. A moment, Miss Waring.’
He rose from his chair, and crossed to a splendid oak sideboard on which stood decanters of rum and brandy and an open bottle of red wine. He poured out two glasses of the wine and returned to his seat. He then handed her one of the glasses. Dazedly, she noticed that it was of the most exquisite quality, like everything else in the room.
‘Now you are plying me with wine again, Mr Dilhorne.’
‘It is usual, Miss Waring, when businessmen and-women end one deal and start another, that they take wine together.’
Hester was so stunned by this remarkable statement that she drank her wine in one vulgar swallow.
‘Another glass, Miss Waring?’
‘Certainly not, Mr Dilhorne. Are you trying to make me drunk?’
‘Not today, Miss Waring. Another time, perhaps.’
The glance Hester threw him was tragic. She was almost ready to clutch her head in despair. How had her perfectly reasonable request of him led her to this strange pass? End one deal and begin another, indeed! What could the man be talking about?
‘You mentioned business deals, Mr Dilhorne. What business deals are these? And how am I involved?’
‘Well, the first one is my buying up your father’s debts, as you so cleverly surmised, and we are celebrating the fact that I burned them so that you may buy your own port and puddings. The second deal I am prepared to put to you when you are feeling a little more composed.’
‘I am perfectly composed, Mr Dilhorne.’
Hester made her voice as cool and firm as she could. To no avail.
‘I said more composed, Miss Waring. Now I am going to ask my clerk to bring in something to eat. It is my usual habit at this time. I hope that you will see your way to sharing my nuncheon, and when we have finished we may have a little chat together on matters of mutual advantage, which is the sort of nonsense fine gentlemen usually talk when they wish to impress fools. But you are far from being a fool, Miss Waring, and we shall, I hope, meet on terms of equality.’
Hester’s first reaction to this speech was, Where on earth has short-spoken Mr Tom Dilhorne gone to? as these Gibbonian periods rolled out. Despite her determination not to become even more indebted to him in the matter of food and drink than she already was, she found herself salivating at the mere idea of partaking of what Mr Tom Dilhorne thought was a good meal. Judging by everything else about him, it would be remarkably fine.
‘I cannot imagine what business deal you can be proposing to me, Mr Dilhorne, but yes, I will take luncheon with you.’
He rose, rang a small bell on his desk and Smith came in.
‘The usual, no, rather better than the usual, Joseph, and for two today. As soon as possible, please.’
Tom turned to Hester. She now sat almost crouched in her chair, her eyes as wary as a hunting cat’s.
‘Come, Miss Waring, what shall we discuss? I believe that it is considered the thing for ladies and gentlemen to mouth polite nothings at one another when they are in our situation.’
Nothing for it but to join him in his idiocies.
‘We could discuss the news from home, perhaps.’
Tom smiled his crooked smile again, and sat down. ‘Seeing that it is nearly a year out of date before it reaches us, I agree with you. It is certainly nothing.’
Hester could not prevent a giggle from escaping. He greeted this with approval. ‘Excellent, Miss Waring. I believe we understand each other very well.’
Several moments more of the most impolite banter followed, with each party trying to outdo the other in outrageousness. Hester had never felt so carefree in her life. Fun and banter were new to her and the ease with which she found herself responding to Mr Tom Dilhorne’s naughtinesses surprised her. Excitement gripped her to the degree that she thought that her head might fly off, it felt so light.
‘You see how easy it is to engage in small talk,’ Tom said when Smith returned, carrying a basket of food. Smith then went over to the sideboard and fetched out china plates and silver knives and forks, more glasses, some spoons of varying sizes and fruit knives with delicate ivory handles. Drawing up a small drum table, he arranged these before Tom and Hester, finally handing each of them a damask napkin from a drawer in the sideboard.
That done, he bowed and left, and Tom began lifting bread, butter, cheese, cold sliced meat and fruit out of the basket.
‘I can safely say that I am able to recommend everything, Miss Waring, including this bottle.’
He lifted another bottle of wine out of the basket and began to open it.
‘You may not believe this, Miss Waring, but I am an abstemious man where drink is concerned. I am, however, prepared to make an exception today in your honour.’
He poured her more wine in yet another elegant glass; this time she drank it with proper decorum, and began to attack the beautiful food, not trying to conceal her hunger, for she had scarcely eaten since Boxing Day. Tom watched her with approval, occasionally recommending to her the choicest titbits from the basket.
The last thing that he lifted out was a large pineapple, which he divided between them. They ate it with a great deal of amusement, the sticky liquid from it running over their hands. Hester, now well into her third glass of wine, had never eaten pineapple before and she found it delicious.
‘But a little messy, Mr Dilhorne, is it not? Pray, is there no polite way to consume such a delicacy?’
She gave him a smile of such sweetness that Tom began to wonder what a properly fed and cared-for Miss Waring might look like.
The pineapple disposed of, its remains neatly wrapped in some of the paper from the basket, he rang for Smith to bring them a bowl of water and a towel so that they might wash and dry their sticky hands. After that, Smith and another man came in and took away everything but the bottle of wine and their glasses.
Alone again, Tom poured Hester more wine. Her third or fourth glass? she queried hazily. He was evidently trying to turn her into a toper as well as a glutton, but oh, what a delicious sense of well-being eating good food brought on! She could forgive him almost anything for that.
He was opposite to her again, his manner now quite serious.
‘Miss Waring, I have a proposition to put to you. Pray do not dismiss it out of hand. Think carefully about what I am saying. Your future happiness may rest on it.’ He paused.
What could the man be about to say? My future happiness? I must be mishearing. It is all the wine I am drinking, thought Hester, absent-mindedly taking another great swallow in order to clear her fuddled head.
More elegantly arranged sentences followed. ‘As you may or may not
know, Miss Waring, I am shortly to lose my housekeeper, who is getting married and going to live at Paramatta. I need not say what a blow this is to a man who likes an orderly life. Now, you, Miss Waring, would make an excellent person to run my home. You have a good mind, a bright wit, and would also make me an informed companion with whom I could usefully converse.’
Hester heard all this with her mouth open—not an uncommon occurrence when she was talking to Mr Tom Dilhorne. She tried to imagine herself usefully conversing with him—on what? Whilst thinking this over, she finished her wine and he neatly filled her glass again. She failed to notice that he was not drinking anything.
‘But we have a problem, Miss Waring: much though I should like to employ you, and much though you might want to come—’ this fascinated her, how could he really think that? ‘—there is no way in which a charming young lady such as yourself could agree to live in the house of a man like me who has a certain reputation—you take my meaning, I am sure. Think of the gossip which would ensue!
‘Now, I also need a wife. A lady who knows what’s what about etiquette and the proper thing to do. And you would make an excellent wife, Miss Waring, but I fear that you do not really wish to marry me in the true sense. I am right, am I not?’
Hester found herself nodding her head, quite unable to speak. She was not sure whether it was the wine, or the shock which his words were bringing on which held her paralysed and mute. He took her nodding head for agreement to his last proposition and smoothly continued.
‘That being so, and I see that, as usual, we are in complete accord, you will understand why I am making this purely business proposition to you, Miss Waring. What would you say if I asked you to marry me, in name only, so that I would acquire a wife and a hostess, and you would acquire safety, respectability and a good home?’
He had finished, and was sitting back and smiling at her, the blue eyes dancing, his crooked smile more crooked than ever. He repeated his earlier words. ‘What would you say, Miss Waring?’
Miss Waring took another swallow, hardly able to credit what she was hearing—for more reasons than one. She wanted to ask him, What on earth has happened to your diction, Mr Dilhorne, to transform you from the poorly spoken brute my father despised? And how in the world did a felon from the gutters of London, transported for theft—or worse—acquire such a superb command of the English language?
She merely said instead, ‘That I think that you have run mad, Mr Dilhorne, except that you sound so eminently sane, which I admit confuses me more than a little. Are you really serious?’
‘Yes, I am really serious.’
Hester had to admit that he must be. Through the haze which had begun to surround her she could detect that he looked more serious than she had ever seen him before.
‘In name only?’ she asked him. ‘With all that that implies?’
Hester felt that it would be grossly indelicate to put it any more plainly, to say, We are not to go to bed together, Mr Dilhorne? or, You will not demand your marital rights? She dismissed from her mind what her mother and father would have said to…all this. After all, it was not they who were living on a knife edge with the gutter and the brothel staring them in the face.
Was she really having this remarkable conversation with her father’s ogre, or was she dreaming it?
‘Yes, in name only, Miss Waring. You understand me, I’m sure.’
‘How do I know that, once married, you will keep your word?’
‘I always keep my word, once given. Without my word, I may do anything…anything at all. And if the other party breaks their word, then, again, I am free to act as I please. Perhaps you would like Joseph Smith to draw up a contract for us to sign, Miss Waring? We can get him and one of my clerks to witness it.’
Another dreadful giggle escaped her at the mere idea of such an outlandish notion.
‘I think not, Mr Dilhorne, it would not be fitting. Tell me, are there many businessmen like you?’
‘Fortunately not, Miss Waring, else I should not be so disgustingly rich.’
Thinking this over, rather hazily, Hester nevertheless thought that she took his meaning. She mumbled, rather than replied as decorously as she would have wished, ‘Do you expect an…ansher…answer immediately, Mr Dilhorne?’ For some reason it was getting harder and harder to speak. Her tongue was thick and she needed to rest. Oh, how she needed to rest!
‘No, Miss Waring. You may give me an answer when you wish. Except that I hope that you may not be too long. We are neither of us getting any younger.’
‘Indubitably, Mr Dilhorne.’ This proved surprisingly difficult to say. ‘Not too long then.’
Why was it that lately, when she met him, she always wanted to sleep? Even the food he had sent her had put her to sleep. Part of her wanted to say Yes, immediately, to his disgraceful proposition. The other part, the part her father and mother had nurtured, told her that she was mad to trust this ruffian, no matter how beautifully he now dressed and spoke.
Her vulgar Mentor suddenly popped up again—having been asleep, no doubt, while Mr Tom Dilhorne was cunningly bending her to his will—and said loudly, But think of the comfort, the good food, the conversation—you like talking to him, you know you do—and you will be safe from the Larkins of this world and their impudent clerks.
She refused to admit to herself that Mr Tom Dilhorne still frightened her a little even though she was beginning to find him disturbingly attractive.
Hester gave a great yawn and surrendered. ‘I will give you an answer in a week, Mr Dilhorne.’
Carefully placing her empty glass beside the nearly empty bottle, she settled back in her chair and went to sleep as quietly and properly as a fuddled lady could.
His face a mixture of amusement and tenderness—an expression which would have astounded everyone who knew him—Mr Tom Dilhorne looked down at her and, moved by some impulse he could not define, bent down and kissed the top of her head.
That done, he rose, walked to his desk and resumed his interrupted work, but not before he had looked across at her face, serene in sleep, and murmured to himself, ‘And if I don’t get you willingly into my bed in a few weeks after marriage, I shall be the most surprised man in Sydney!’
Hester awoke with a sense of well-being and a strong desire to use the place of easement, as Mrs Cooke genteelly called it.
He seemed to understand that, too. For, on looking up and finding her stirring, he pointed to the door behind him, and said, ‘Through there, Miss Waring.’
Hester was out of the door and into the courtyard where the place of easement was before she had time to be flustered or concerned about the delicacies of life. Using the primitive facilities provided, she pondered on the strange nature of her unlikely benefactor and the curious intimacy which they had achieved in which the unspoken needs of men and women could be treated so rationally.
After that, she was taken home again, like a lady, in his gig, with her promise to give him an answer soon. His man delivered her to her doorstep and to Mrs Cooke’s resigned ecstasies about her lodger’s sudden rise in the world.
Chapter Five
Hester did not need a week to make up her mind, but she had promised Tom a week and she kept to her word. She was not sure whether at the end of it she was to visit his office in order to give him her decision. In the midst of worrying about this, she sensibly decided that a man of his resourcefulness would create his own opportunity in order to discover it.
She had known from the moment that he had made his offer that she would accept it. Scandalous and shocking as it might be, she was prepared to sell her soul for security. She would not have agreed to a true marriage, but to be his wedded, un-bedded, housekeeper, and hostess, that was different, wasn’t it? He had told her that he would keep his word and she had to hope that he would.
She would be settled and life would not be dull if her meetings with him so far were any guide. He had said that he wanted to converse with her. She wondered wherever the
se discussions would take place. Over tea, perhaps, or during a genteel walk in the garden.
Somehow, such imaginings did not accord with the unruly and unstructured nature of the conversations which they had already held. Her dreadful Mentor had constantly provoked her into making the most improper remarks. What would it do when she was alone with him and the doors had been locked for the night?
Hester shrank away from this aspect of his proposal and concentrated firmly on the more impersonal parts of it. There was nothing to fear, she was sure. After Mary Mahoney, her Mentor said unkindly, why should he want to take you to bed?—adding slyly, More’s the pity.
She put a hand to her flaming cheeks and willed the horrid voice to stop. It is not that at all. I do not wish to be his true wife, and I am afraid of him.
Not so much as you were—her Mentor’s voice was almost agreeable—and when you know him better you’ll fear him even less.
In the middle of her deliberations Mr Dilhorne’s boy came—again!—with a basket of fruit and some hothouse flowers for Miss Waring and Mrs Cooke. He had more than he needed for himself, said his note, and he hoped that they would do him the honour of eating up his surplus so that it would not go to waste.
‘If I did not know you both better, I would say that you had an admirer there, Miss Waring,’ was Mrs Cooke’s dazzled comment as she ate the fruit.
Meeting Hester in the street the next day, Tom bowed genially to her and wished her a cheerful ‘Good morning’. By his manner she knew that he was going to play what her Mentor had christened his cat-and-mouse game with her.
‘I have no answer for you today,’ said Hester repressively. ‘The week is not yet up, and you do not assist matters by bombarding me with fruit.’
‘Ah, you and Mrs Cooke do not like fruit? A pity. Shall I send you some more wine, instead? I know that you like that.’ His merry eyes were mocking her, even though the rest of his face was grave.
‘You must not send me anything until I have made up my mind, Mr Dilhorne. Or I shall think that you are trying to influence my answer in your favour.’
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