by Judy Nunn
Jessica walked up the path and knocked on the door. It was opened by a handsome woman. Her copper-coloured hair although streaked with grey was thick and attractive and, despite the fact that she leaned on a cane, she was tall and of regal carriage. Jessica guessed her to be in her fifties.
‘Hello, are you Miss Southern?’ Jessica asked.
‘I am.’ The woman nodded pleasantly.
‘I’m Jessica Williams.’
‘I know.’ The woman smiled.
Her smile was extraordinarily beautiful, Jessica thought. ‘I hope you don’t mind my just calling around,’ she apologised, ‘but he said … Foong Lee that is …
‘He rang me. I’ve been expecting you.’
Henrietta Galloway extended her hand and the two women shook. ‘How do you do, Jessica,’ she said, ‘Please come in.’
Henrietta led the way into a pleasant parlour where the clear January sun filtered through lace curtains and Jessica could see the cumquat trees in the front garden. What a pretty place, she thought, airy and feminine. One feature was at odds with the rest of the room, but somehow it managed to add to its interest. The far wall, from floor to ceiling, was a massive built-in bookcase. There must have been hundreds of books cluttering the shelves, some carefully ordered, some piled untidily, as if they were referred to often. Henrietta Southern was obviously an avid reader, Jessica thought.
A tea tray was set out on the coffee table by the windows. Fine china cups and saucers sat beside the teapot, and there was a plate of shortbread biscuits.
Henrietta propped her stick against a hard-backed carver by the windows and sat, indicating the armchair opposite. ‘I’m not very comfortable in armchairs myself. Tea?’
Jessica nodded, bemused as she watched Henrietta pour the tea. The brew was piping hot, it had just been prepared.
Henrietta was aware of the girl’s bemusement. ‘Foong Lee guessed that you’d be around within twenty minutes,’ she smiled. ‘In fact he said he’d lay odds on it, and he’s a very successful gambler, so I made tea.’
Jessica felt relaxed in the older woman’s company; it was difficult not to, Henrietta Southern was charming.
‘Yes, he’s an amazing man, isn’t he?’ she said, recalling Foong Lee’s recognition of her origins. ‘I only met him the once, but I found him quite extraordinary.’
‘The feeling was obviously mutual,’ Henrietta said, handing Jessica her tea. ‘You made a very strong first impression on Foong Lee too.’
‘Really?’ Jessica was surprised—why would Foong Lee have found her impressive? But she was pleased, and somehow very flattered.
Henrietta observed the girl over the rim of her teacup. Jessica Williams was free from artifice and every bit as interesting as Foong Lee had said. Not beautiful in the classical sense, but very attractive. How he had ever picked her Aboriginal blood was beyond Henrietta; she herself would have assumed the girl was Irish.
‘Very few people impress Foong Lee upon first meeting,’ she continued. She wanted to chat to the girl, to get to know her before they touched upon the reason for her visit. ‘He makes them feel that they do, but they don’t really. He can be very devious.’
Henrietta remembered Paul’s description of Foong Lee. ‘Don’t let him fool you, Henrietta, he’s the quintessence of Oriental inscrutability.’ She’d laughed at the time, but he’d been quite serious. ‘He’s a chameleon,’ Paul had said. ‘He’ll be whatever he thinks people wish him to be. But once he’s your friend … Oh my darling girl, he’s your friend for life. You must always remember that.’
‘I can’t think why on earth he’d be impressed with me,’ said Jessica.
‘He told me he admired your passion.’
‘Did he?’ Jessica was once again surprised, but delighted.
‘Yes, your passion and your dedication.’ Henrietta offered the plate of shortbread biscuits and Jessica took one. ‘But mainly your passion. He believes greatly in passion, although he says it’s a quality he doesn’t possess.’
Henrietta recalled Foong Lee’s words. ‘You have a passion which is enviable, Henrietta. A passion for life. And it is that passion which will heal you.’ He had been right, as usual.
Comfortable as Jessica felt in Henrietta’s presence, she was nonetheless a little puzzled. Henrietta Southern obviously knew why she had called upon her, and yet she seemed to be avoiding the topic.
‘Have you lived in Perth long, Miss Southern?’ She took a bite of the biscuit, dying to ask leading questions but feeling it would be more discreet to continue with the general conversation.
‘Call me Henrietta, please.’ The girl was sensitive too, Henrietta noted with approval. ‘Thirteen years,’ she said. ‘Is the shortbread good? I haven’t tried it myself, I only opened the tin this morning.’
‘Terrific.’
Henrietta decided it was time to put Jessica out of her misery. The girl was obviously aching for answers. She set her cup back on the tray.
‘Foong Lee tells me that you’re searching for an antique locket which was once in my possession.’
‘Yes.’ The shortbread stuck momentarily in Jessica’s throat as she swallowed. Once in her possession. So Henrietta didn’t have the locket. Not that Foong Lee had said that she did, Jessica now recalled. ‘Miss Southern knows of the next stage in the locket’s journey,’ that was what he’d said, but in her excitement Jessica hadn’t really listened.
The girl’s bitter disappointment was palpable and Henrietta wished she could tell her the truth. She decided to buy time and, pouring more tea, she asked about Jessica’s research.
‘Get her to tell you her story,’ Foong Lee had said. ‘The locket has a connection with her people; you’ll find it most fascinating.’
‘Do tell me about your interest in the locket, Jessica,’ she implored. ‘Foong Lee told me your story was fascinating.’
With a definite sense that Henrietta was hedging, Jessica told of her search for the locket. As she did so, she couldn’t help but warm to her theme, and Henrietta recognised the girl’s passion just as Foong Lee had.
‘… then when Foong Lee told me it was most likely seventeenth-century and Dutch into the bargain,’ she concluded, having barely drawn breath for a full fifteen minutes, ‘I thought all my Christmases had come at once! I mean it simply had to have come ashore from one of the early shipwrecks!’
The two fresh cups of tea sat cold before them. Jessica’s excitement was contagious and Henrietta had been as immersed in the story as Jessica herself had been in the telling of it.
‘And then he described the initials inside,’ Jessica said. ‘L v.d. M. and B v.d. M. It was easy after that, there’s been so much written about the Batavia since the wreck was discovered in 1963.’
Henrietta nodded. She’d heard the gruesome stories of murder and mayhem associated with the wreck of the Batavia.
‘Lucretia van den Mylen was her name,’ Jessica continued. ‘She was an aristocrat, a woman of great beauty, and she was sailing to the East Indies to meet her husband, Boudewijn.’
Lucretia and Boudewijn van den Mylen. Henrietta recalled her thoughts when she’d looked at the initials in the locket on the night that Paul had given it to her. Who were they, she’d wondered? Had their love survived into the autumn of their years as hers and Paul’s could not?
‘What became of Lucretia?’ she asked.
‘She survived the shipwreck and the atrocities that followed, miraculously enough, and she finally reached Batavia aboard the rescue vessel the Zaandam. Which means,’ Jessica said thoughtfully, ‘that the locket came ashore with someone else. Either she gave it to someone or it was stolen. I tend to favour the latter. Why would she give it away? It was surely designed as a love token.’
‘Oh yes, I’m quite sure of that,’ Henrietta agreed with feeling.
The locket had most certainly been a symbol of the love she had shared with Paul, she thought. But it had also been her undoing. The locket had been the catalyst to Terence’s disco
very of the truth, the initials of Lucretia van den Mylen and her husband having been masked by the photographs of herself and Paul. Even Foong Lee did not know the ongoing story of the locket—Foong Lee knew no more of the locket than the fact that Paul Trewinnard had given it to her before he had died.
‘I’ll make us a fresh pot, shall I?’ Henrietta said, grasping her cane, about to ease herself to her feet.
‘No really, I’m fine,’ Jessica insisted.
‘I think I’d like another cup myself.’
Jessica jumped up. ‘Then let me get it. Please.’
‘What an excellent idea.’ Henrietta rested the cane back against the arm of her chair. ‘The kitchen’s just through there, it’s all set out.’
As Jessica disappeared with the tea tray, Henrietta gazed thoughtfully out the window. She didn’t really want any more tea, but she needed a little space. She wanted to direct the girl to the locket; Jessica deserved the right to find it after the years she had dedicated to her search. But how much of her own story could Henrietta tell? In directing Jessica Williams to the locket, she would be directing her to Kit.
When Foong Lee had telephoned that morning, he had urged Henrietta to make her existence known to her son. ‘Terence Galloway is dead,’ he’d said, baldly stating the fact. ‘He was killed in the cyclone. There is no longer any need for secrecy, Henrietta.’
But it wasn’t as simple as that. Much as she longed to make herself known to her son, Henrietta was nervous, unsure as to whether she should so disrupt his life. The locket would by now have told Kit that Paul Trewinnard was his father. Jackie Yoorunga would have honoured his promise, Henrietta was sure, and Nellie would have delivered the locket to Kit when he’d come of age. He must have had it for years now, and she’d often wondered what his reaction had been. But Kit believed that she was dead. How was she to explain her existence for all of these years? How was she to tell him that she had feared for his life? Terence Galloway’s warning had remained hanging over Henrietta’s head like a curse for the past thirteen years.
‘No-one is ever to know that Kit is not my son,’ he’d said, his words indelibly imprinting themselves on her brain. ‘I would not only kill you, Henrietta, I would kill your bastard child.’ Then, only minutes later he’d thrown her to what he’d thought was her death. Terence Galloway was most certainly capable of murdering her son—it had been no idle threat.
The news of Terence’s death had put Henrietta in a turmoil of indecision. She wanted desperately to make herself known to Kit, but how would he react to her? She would never regret the fact that she had informed him, through the locket, that Paul was his father. She owed it to Paul and she owed it to her son. Kit should know he’d been blessed with blood that was not Terence Galloway’s. But how had Kit reacted to the knowledge of his mother’s infidelity? Had he been shocked? Did he despise her? Henrietta didn’t know whether she could confront her son’s scorn.
Foong Lee’s simple solution to return and carry on where she’d left off had bewildered Henrietta. What was she to tell her son? Was she to tell him that his stepfather who had raised him for all these years was a murderer? And then, seemingly unaware of the myriad of implications, Foong Lee had added the girl. ‘She is obsessed with the locket, Henrietta, she needs to know its history, and now that Terence Galloway is dead, perhaps she could talk to you. She need not know your true identity of course,’ he’d added, as if that presented no problem. ‘May she call on you?’ And Henrietta had found herself saying yes. Foong Lee was a difficult person to refuse and it was quite obvious he wanted her to meet young Jessica Williams. Besides, it had seemed the least of Henrietta’s problems at the time. There would be no harm in telling the girl her story of the locket, she’d decided. She would tell her that it had been a symbol of love. That it had been given to her by a man called Paul Trewinnard who had long since died. And she would tell her that it had been lost over thirteen years ago in the horrific accident which had nearly cost her her life.
But Jessica’s quest of discovery had moved Henrietta, just as it had Foong Lee. Had that perhaps been his intention? Had he hoped that Jessica Williams would be the deciding factor? That she would inadvertently persuade Henrietta to reveal her identity? Foong Lee was quite capable of such manipulative strategy, Henrietta knew. Just as she knew that she could not reveal the locket’s whereabouts without giving away her secret.
Henrietta was deep in thought and still plagued with indecision when Jessica returned from the kitchen.
Jessica too had been thinking. She knew that Henrietta had been buying time to avoid telling her the story of the locket. Now, as she sat, putting the tea tray on the coffee table, it was quite obvious to her that Henrietta Southern was troubled. She was staring out the window, her fine brow furrowed, her eyes troubled. Jessica felt concerned. Had she raised some spectre from the past in her enquiries about the locket?
‘Miss Southern,’ she said tentatively. ‘Henrietta,’ she corrected herself. ‘You’re upset. If I’ve been presumptuous in coming here, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause you any pain …’
It was all Henrietta needed. ‘My name is not Henrietta Southern,’ she stated. ‘It is Henrietta Galloway. And I have a son. His name is Kit.’ Henrietta dragged her gaze from the window to look squarely at Jessica. ‘Kit has the locket.’
Jessica stared back at the older woman, not daring to answer. Henrietta’s tone was grave and her eyes were begging Jessica’s trust.
‘I will tell you a little of what has happened in my life,’ she said. ‘And I must swear you to secrecy—do I have your word?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come with me, Jessica.’ Henrietta eased herself up from her chair a little awkwardly. ‘I shouldn’t really sit for so long,’ she said. ‘I tend to freeze up.’ Jessica followed her into the hall. ‘My hip’s deteriorated a little over the past year or so,’ Henrietta said, leaning heavily on her cane as she walked. ‘They say I may need some revision surgery. Oh well, what will be will be.’
Henrietta was still chatting amiably as they entered the small spare bedroom which she’d converted into a form of office, but Jessica could tell that the woman was preoccupied. ‘I’m actually better if I keep mobile,’ Henrietta said. ‘Please take a seat.’
Jessica looked about at the clutter. A large desk, wedged in one corner, took up half the room, and upon it were a typewriter, manuscripts, open reference books, and endless sheets of paper covered with jottings. There were two bookcases. One, beside the desk, housed hardbacks and the other, beside the door, was stacked with messy piles of paperback editions. Stuck haphazardly up on the wall beside the desk were yet further scribbled notes.
Henrietta offered Jessica the one and only office chair. ‘I really am happier moving about for a while,’ she insisted. With the cane propped at her side, she leaned against the desk and started sifting through a pile of folders on the middle shelf of the bookcase.
Jessica remained standing. She glanced at the titles of the paperbacks, which appeared to be mostly crime fiction. How strange, she thought, she wouldn’t have picked Henrietta Galloway as a crime fiction fan. Then she noticed, on one of the covers, the name Henry South. She picked up the book.
Having taken a scrapbook from amongst the folders, Henrietta turned and gave a wry smile as she saw the paperback in Jessica’s hand. ‘Oh dear, you’ve caught me out,’ she said. ‘They’re of the penny dreadful variety, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m most impressed.’ Jessica looked admiringly at the line-up of Henry South books on the shelf. ‘How many have you written?’
‘Ten in all. They sell quite well, remarkably enough. I tried writing in a more esoteric form but I found I didn’t really have the poetic streak. Not like Kit—there was always a bit of the poet in him, even as a little boy.’
At the mention of her son, Henrietta’s face once again clouded. She was still undecided as to how much she should tell the girl. She set the scrapbook down on the desk.
‘If
you’re to meet my son, it might be a good idea for you to know what he looks like,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. Once again she gestured to the chair. ‘Please sit down, Jessica.’
‘I will if you do.’ Jessica removed a pile of books from the stool which stood by the door. How could she possibly sit whilst Henrietta remained standing? She placed the stool beside the chair.
Henrietta was touched by the gesture, and together they sat. ‘This is Kit,’ she said as she opened the scrapbook.
‘Local War Hero’. Jessica read the headlines on the front page of the Northern Territory News. She studied the picture of the young man with the attractive smile, wondering as she did where the secrecy was leading. It was not unusual for a mother to keep a scrapbook of her son’s exploits.
‘He won the Military Medal,’ Henrietta said. ‘Foong Lee sent me the article. He sends me all of Kit’s articles—he’s a journalist now, and a very good one.’ She watched as Jessica slowly turned the pages of the scrapbook, glancing through Kit’s feature stories, each with a picture of him beside the byline.
Henrietta was very proud of her son. He’d become a fine writer. Paul had always said he showed talent. She remembered the two of them together, Paul holding forth about the great writers of the twentieth century, the little boy hanging on his every word. Paul, too, would have been proud of his son, she often thought.
Jessica turned the page to another article, this time from a magazine. ‘A Family of Territorians’ it was headed, but the article had been mutilated. There was a photograph of Kit with a man’s arm about his shoulder, but the image of the man had been cut out. And there was a further photograph, of a young, dark-haired man, very handsome, in army uniform.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked.
‘That’s my elder son, Malcolm,’ Henrietta said. ‘He was killed in Vietnam.’
‘Oh.’ Jessica glanced at Henrietta, not sure what to say, but Henrietta’s smile assured her no words were necessary.
‘He was a fine young man,’ she said. ‘A hero.’ Poor, dear Malcolm, she had thought, dying in battle. His father would have been broken-hearted but proud. ‘My son died for his country,’ she could hear Terence boast. Henrietta had thought of nothing but the fear and the pain Malcolm might have known. Dear God let it have been quick, she’d prayed.
