CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
‘All Aboard!’
The Wintersleigh party rose early the next day to prepare for the long and hopefully enjoyable day ahead of them. With a combination of fine weather, improved spirits and good health, circumstances, in general, were all in their favour.
The mood, though, was somewhat dampened at breakfast by the discovery that Doctor Brearly was not among the gathering at Wintersleigh. He had been called away on urgent medical business during the early hours of the morning, and was yet to return. This development threw everyone into a state of confusion, and for some time there was debate as to whether the outing to the Port Arthur penal settlement should be cancelled. George pointed out that it was unfair to cancel their arrangements just because one person was absent, and Agnes, still out of spirits, argued that the day trip without her fiancé would offer her little pleasure. Louisa was loathe to agree with anything George Brearly said, but she had set her heart on the excursion for weeks and wanted nothing, not even the doctor’s absence, to interfere with her plans. The pleasure trip was therefore to go ahead, and no time was wasted preparing for it.
At eight-thirty, Frances was leaning against the railings of the s.s. Oonah, the boat her party would be travelling on to Port Arthur. The steamer wasn’t due to leave until a quarter-to-nine, but the deck was filling fast. George Brearly was by her side, an arrangement that was becoming more than just habit, and while he chattered to her about everything and nothing, Frances scanned the faces of the crowd down on the Argyle Street pier, searching in vain for Michael Brearly. She grew more restless and despondent with every passing minute. These feelings came almost as a surprise to Frances. Since knowing both the Brearly brothers she had convinced herself that she preferred George. He was better looking after all, younger and more affable than Michael, but something in her subconscious was attracted to the older brother. They had more in common for a start, but she was curiously drawn to his darker side and his passionate nature, and she was also sympathetic (given her own current turmoil) to his increasingly evident inner conflicts, without knowing exactly what had caused them. George’s constant flirting and puppy-like exuberance pleased Frances in small amounts, but his unremitting volubility, at times, suggested a general immaturity, rather than a genuine sanguineness. To Frances, George’s behaviour lacked Michael’s depth of feeling.
Louisa, who was standing a short distance away from her, was growing increasingly apprehensive, and soon interrupted Frances’s thoughts with her loud, doleful voice.
‘Dear, oh dear,’ she lamented, ‘where are they? I feel certain I told Charlotte and Cyril to meet us at a quarter-past-eight. And where is Michael?’ In her hands she held a white lace handkerchief, and with every minute without a sighting of the missing members, she wrung it harder and harder.
To the party’s collective dismay, the shrill sounding of the Oonah’s whistle at a quarter-to-nine announced to the passengers that the boat was at last ready to depart. The gangway was soon taken up, and once the ropes were loosened the vessel began to pull away from the wharf. Louisa didn’t waste any time in assembling the Wintersleigh party and informing them that Charlotte, Cyril and Michael had failed to arrive. In her usual manner, she expressed her bitter disappointment and her many misgivings in an effusive monologue, which did nothing to raise the spirits of her companions.
As Frances listened to her aunt drone on and on, she felt an encroaching sense of emptiness, a void she realised that would not be filled by George Brearly’s company alone. Above her in the sky, a mass of squawking seagulls was taking flight.
At that moment, the distinctive cry of ‘Mama!’ caught Frances’s attention and she looked up. To her astonishment, Charlotte and her husband Cyril Beckett were standing before her, as well as a tired, but relieved looking Doctor Brearly. Frances’s heart leapt at the sight of him, but apart from a slight reddening of her cheeks, she was able to remain admirably calm.
‘Oh, my dears!’ Louisa cried, surging towards them with her fluttering handkerchief. As she moved, her new bonnet, decorated with black chiffon wings and flowers quaked. ‘You have no idea how worried I have been!’ She took up one of Michael’s hands and squeezed it affectionately. She made no effort, however, to touch her daughter or son-in-law, or show them any sign of affection. In fact, she ignored Cyril Beckett completely. ‘My dear Michael, I thought you had missed the boat! Where did you get to? No, no, I do not want to know. You are here with us now, and that is all that matters.’ She raised her handkerchief to her nose, and began dabbing it affectedly.
Agnes, by this stage, had manoeuvred her way to the front of the group, and was standing by Michael’s side. ‘Oh, these wretched crowds,’ she was saying crossly, ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been jostled this morning!’ She brushed down her dress with a daintily gloved hand. ‘I shall be most surprised if my gown isn’t torn to shreds by the time we get home.’
‘Yes, you are right there, my dear,’ Louisa complained, ‘it is most vexing the way these people behave. Anyone would think that they had never been on a boat before.’
‘That’s why we were late, Mama,’ Charlotte began timidly. ‘It has taken us all this time just to make our way up onto the deck.’ Being a little overweight, she was still panting from the exertion of climbing the stairs. ‘I’ve, I’ve never seen so many people before. It was positively a crush.’
‘Well, what do you expect?’ George ventured, as he pushed his way forward through the crowd to shake the Reverend Cyril Beckett’s hand. ‘Good to see you again, Cyril,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘Oh, I love your hat by the way. Very formal. Very you.’ He paused momentarily. ‘But I digress. We were discussing the crowds of people. I’m not surprised in the least by how busy it is. It’s Boxing Day. The weather is good, for a change, and besides, what else is there to do in Hobart? Nothing!’
‘Nothing?’ Louisa retorted. ‘What are you talking about, George Brearly? There is always an abundance of things to do and see in Hobart.’
‘For your generation perhaps, Louey,’ George said. He gave Frances a mischievous smile. ‘But not for young people, such as myself. It’s like living out in the backwoods.’ Having extracted a cigarette from his cigarette case, he rummaged around in his pocket for a box of matches.
‘George!’ Louisa exclaimed peevishly. ‘Must you always be so difficult?’ She then turned on her heel and stormed off to seek Michael, who had, during the course of the exchange, strangely disappeared, along with Agnes.
‘By Jove,’ George muttered, ‘she’ll get brain fever the way she’s going. Either that, or she’ll self-combust.’ Griping under his breath, he lit his cigarette, before wandering off into the crowd.
In George’s absence, Charlotte Beckett approached Frances and introduced her husband Cyril to her. Frances was genuinely pleased to meet him, not because she particularly wished to make his acquaintance, but because she liked Charlotte, and any one dear to her must be worthy of her own civility. Once the introductions were completed, Frances was at leisure to stand and talk with him, but to her amazement he did not volunteer a single word in the conversation that she had initiated. Instead of talking, he stood by his wife, and nodding his head, agreed with everything Frances said. After an observation of some fifteen minutes, Frances soon came to the conclusion that her new acquaintance was as mysterious as his wife was laconic. He was a curious looking man in the region of forty years of age, with dull eyes, a sweaty forehead, bushy eyebrows, moustache and beard, and in general, had an excess of facial hair that seemed to permeate every patch of skin on his face. As a result, it was very difficult to see whether he had any facial features, such as ears, a nose or even a mouth. All Frances knew was that his beard tendrils wound around his face with all the tenacity and profusion of ivy.
Frances felt a tug at her elbow, and looking around her, discovered an impatient looking George Brearly by her side. He had just returned from his explorations and was making a concerted effort to detach France
s from her present company. Frances was not all together reluctant to leave, and she soon bade the Becketts a polite farewell.
‘What is it?’ she inquired, once she was alone with George. ‘What ever is the matter?’
‘Nothing much,’ he murmured, flicking his spent cigarette overboard.
‘George,’ she said, half laughingly, ‘I don’t know whether this escaped your attention, but I was actually talking to those people.’
‘Were you?’ replied a smiling George. ‘It didn’t look like that to me. It looked as though you were engrossed by Cyril Beckett’s facial hair.’
‘Oh dear, was I that obvious?’ George nodded. ‘Poor Mr Beckett. He must think that I am terribly rude.’
‘No need to get in a twitter about it. I’m sure he’s quite used to it. So what do you think of him?’
Frances reflected. ‘Well,’ she began, uncertain of what to say, ‘a number of adjectives readily comes to mind.’
‘And would ‘hairy’ be one of those adjectives?’ Frances smiled but said nothing. ‘Cyril Beckett,’ George kept on in a confiding voice, ‘I’m sorry to say, is one of the hairiest men I know. I sometimes wonder why an intelligent girl like Charlotte married a man who has hair sprouting out of his ears.’
‘George Brearly, you are too cruel!’
‘Yes, I am, aren’t I? Oh well, when it comes to people like Cyril Beckett, I just can’t help myself. He’s such an interesting looking man. Pity he has very little personality. It’s almost as though his moustache has sucked out all the life in him. He’s the dullest man I know, and that’s saying something, coming from a man who has had to live with a brother like Michael.’ Frances smiled, in spite of George’s irreverent comment, but held her tongue. ‘Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I find Cyril Beckett particularly repellent in manner, but it’s all that hair. It un-nerves me excessively.’
George Brearly would perhaps have continued talking on the matter indefinitely, if Agnes Wentworth had not approached the pair, and put an abrupt end to their conversation.
Breakfast at Midnight Page 26
