“This is where...” Mr Parsons said uncomfortably, “where cadavers are burnt and disposed of. The Indians spread the ashes in the river. It is a great honor in their religion. We don’t usually follow this custom with British citizens, but in the case of infectious disease, it is the best thing.”
The various confronting smells gave way to another. It wasn’t a smell he knew well, but he knew without a doubt what it was. A pyre was burning not far away from where they were standing. Lysander pulled out his handkerchief and covered his nose, but it did nothing to deter the pervasive stink.
“This is where she...?”
“Yes,” Mr Parsons said. “Unfortunately there was no one from our office here at the time. Due to the nature of her illness...” he drifted off. “The outbreak has abated, but we do get them coming through from time to time. Damned unlucky in this case.” Mr Parsons called to someone, speaking the local language. A man came forward. He wore nothing other than a cloth wrapped around his private area and another on his head. “This is the man who saw to the victims from the hotel.”
The man spoke animatedly, moving his head oddly sideways as he did so, turning his palm over as he spoke.
“He said the man’s ashes were spread in the river,” Mr Parsons conveyed.
Lysander sighed at the lack of a proper Christian ritual. “Wait, what about the woman?”
Mr Parsons spoke to the man who started shaking his head again. They spoke animatedly between them as Lysander watched. Mr Parsons finally turned to him and opened his mouth, seemingly trying to formulate his words. Lysander narrowed his eyes knowing that something uncomfortable was about to come. He didn’t want to hear about something unfortunate, or worse, something uncondonable happening to his wife’s body.
“He says...” the man blustered and Lysander stared at him intently. “He says... there was only one body—a man.”
“What of the woman?” Lysander said through clenched teeth.
Mr Parsons turned back to the man and spoke rapidly before turning back.
“The only woman he saw was alive; she was standing about where you are. She had a yellow dress and she had hair like—” Mr Parsons said something he couldn’t understand. “It is a grain that is a light brown color.”
“Is my wife dead or not?” Lysander said icily.
“I think I had better...I need to speak to some people. If you would bear with me for a moment.”
Chapter 3
Adele looked around the classroom where she was now the mistress. The children were gone for the day, but there was still work for her to do. It had been her second month of teaching and she had succeeded in overcoming the nervousness she’d initially felt as she took control of the class in the small brick building that served as the new district school.
It had been easier to secure the position than she’d expected, but the labor shortage in this growing city included educated teachers.
She’d picked Adelaide without any particular reason. There had been a ship traveling that way and she’d made a split decision to buy passage, primarily for the reason that it was in the direct opposite direction from London. Samson’s death had been unexpected and she’d had to make a decision about what to do, and the choices were to go back to her imprisonment or to set out on her own. The second option was infinitely frightening, but on reflection, it was a preferred option to returning to her husband.
The thought of her husband made her frown; she liked it better when she didn’t think of him, and Samson had been very good at pushing him from her thoughts. She’d spent too many years worrying about her husband and she was finished. She was finished the minute she’d decided to leave his house in Devon.
She thought back on the man who had taken her away, her lovely Samson. He’d been attentive and sweet, and above all else, he’d actually liked her. There had been a few others who’d expressed interest in her before Samson, but she’d never encouraged them in the slightest and even looked down on them for expressing interest in a married woman. Even though she had disliked it on the rare occasion when she was discreetly propositioned, it had always shocked her that someone would show interest in her when her husband had consistently proven that there was nothing of interest or of value in her. But then Samson had come along, looked at her like she was a woman and made her feel alive. She hadn’t encouraged him at first, but his interest had introduced forbidden thoughts to her mind.
Focusing her thoughts on the present, she packed away the book that had served as her guide over the last two months—the book in which was written everything she could remember about her own education at a school for privileged young girls. She’d received a good education; her father had secured the best education available to girls not strictly of the right background—that unforgivable sin that had plagued her throughout most of her life, including her marriage.
Turning the heavy lock on the door of her classroom, she headed out onto the dusty street and toward the women’s boarding house where she’d established herself since she’d first arrived. Adelaide wasn’t a large city, but it was growing—fed by the gold that had been extracted from the state over the last couple of decades. The city was an array of new buildings to show off the prosperity of the inhabitants. Adele couldn’t help but to feel the underlying belief in new possibilities and the optimism that the people of this town lent to everything they did. They knew they were building a city for the future and were planning on making it a good city, which provided opportunities—even for lone women arriving with nothing but themselves and a change of clothes.
She’d spent most of the journey recovering from the illness that had inflicted her and claimed the man she had been living with for the last six months. She’d fallen sick first and he’d cared for her, ignoring his own worsening condition. And while she started to recover, he’d only grown worse. She’d tried her best to care for him, but the thoughts of her own weakness contributing to his deterioration plagued her. The doctor who’d come to see them had informed her that recovery from the condition was more an issue of personal constitution than anything that can be done for the sufferer, but she still wondered if there was something more she could have done.
His death had been some of the darkest days she’d ever known. She’d forced her weak but recovering body to follow him to the site where he was cremated, hating every single moment of it, but she didn’t want to desert him.
Walking home through the streets of Adelaide, the dark and sorrowful memories followed her all the way to the white painted gate of the boarding house. She’d never lived so modestly, but it wasn’t the lack of luxuries that bothered her, more the worry about having done the right thing. She had devised a fairly grave deception by letting it be known that she had succumbed to the cholera just like Samson had. She’d had to involve the hotel manager in the deception, but he’d assured her that it wouldn’t be a difficult ruse under the circumstances.
She hadn’t really known what she was doing. The hotel manager had been kind in trying to console her and she’d confided her fears in returning to her husband—knowing it was the one thing she couldn’t do. In response to her distress, he had helped her devise a plan that would release her—release everyone from the obligations they had all been living with.
“Come on, Tabitha,” a handsome man said, yelling up at the window to Adele’s neighbor’s room. “You can’t be angry with me. It didn’t mean a thing.”
Adele walked past the man who received no response to his plea. As she reached the porch and stepped inside the door, she looked back briefly at the clearly distressed man, gripping his hat in his hands.
“Is he still out there?” Tabitha asked as they met on the internal staircase.
“Yes.”
“What does he take me for? He goes off with another girl and then expects me to take him back when she rejects him. The nerve of the man.” Tabitha twirled her dark hair around her finger. “I swear they think they can talk themselves out of anything they do. He ch
arged in here like the cavalry until Matron chased him out with a broom.” Tabitha stepped aside on the narrow staircase and let Adele pass. “Really, there are more men here than there are fish in the sea, and he expects me to forgive him.”
“Doesn’t sound like someone you want to associate with anyway,” Adele said.
“He was wonderful at first, and maybe, looking back on it, that should have told me something,” Tabitha said as she followed Adele up the stairs.
“I suppose if they are too charming, they’ve had too much practise.”
“Never mind. Move onto the next, I say. We are going to the theatre tomorrow night. I think you should come,” Tabitha stated. “All the girls are going.”
“I don’t know,” Adele said with uncertainty. She hadn’t participated in the social activities devised by the girls of the boarding house.
“You can’t sit in your room forever. Would your husband want you to waste your life sitting in your room mourning for him?”
Adele had told people she was a widow when she’d arrived and the persona seemed to have stuck. She didn’t feel proud of the deception, but she couldn’t very well say that she’d falsified reports of her own death to escape her husband. She knew full well that none of the things she’d done were honorable and she wasn’t proud of it, but she needed to be free.
Luckily, no-one asked too many questions about what people did before they reached Australia. Everyone here was from somewhere else and everyone had hopes and dreams that drove them across half of the world to restart their lives in a new country. Tabitha was from Cork and she had come over through a scheme offering free passage for nurses.
“I’m not taking no for an answer—you’re coming with us,” Tabitha said, pushing open her own door.
“I’ll think about it,” Adele said, but Tabitha had already closed her door.
Putting her bag down on the table, Adele sank down in the single chair her small room would accommodate. Even with its modest size, the white paper and yellow curtains made it look bright and cheery. The boarding house she’d chosen was a little more expensive than others, but the decor and the insistence on professional women boarders made it a nice place to live. She had walked past a few that seemed to accommodate more rowdy boarders, passing without a second glance.
She’d known this was the one, even as she walked up the path. It was managed by a Mrs Muiller, who everyone called Matron. She ran a strict curfew and equally strict rules about men even coming up on the porch.
Adele sighed as she still heard the man outside calling for Tabitha to come deal with him, followed by Matron’s stern chiding. The man’s yelps indicating that he was being taken to by Matron’s broom again.
She tried to imagine who would come off best in a confrontation between Matron and her husband. His disapproving looks could wilt anyone, but he would have to compete with Matron’s complete lack of sympathy for any male.
Adele sat in Isobel’s splendid parlor with Isobel and her teenage son, Andrew. The gentle pops of the fire soothing after the large supper they’d had.
“Why don’t you stay here tonight? There is no point in you trudging through the sleet all the way home when you will be just as comfortable here,” Isobel said.
“I do have the carriage; I would hardly be trudging.”
“I am afraid you will have to, because I already dismissed the driver and the footman. It is Christmas after all. I didn’t mean to take your stay for granted, but I just didn’t have the heart to make them stay.”
Adele laughed. “No, you are right; I should have thought of it myself.” In truth, staying the night here was a relief in a way as there was little chance that she would run into Lysander, or even that it would surpass anything beyond a greeting if she did, but still, it released the nervous tension she felt whenever she was near or even had the potential of seeing her husband.
“Now shall we sing?” Isobel suggested.
“Really mother, must we?” Andrew said with annoyance.
“Alas, I am going to believe you are impatient at receiving your presents like you used to be, Andrew.” The young man groaned with discomfiture of which part, Adele was sure, was put on. “The sad truth is that you will always be my baby and I refuse to acknowledge that you have grown into a man, particularly now at Christmas when you are required to participate in any delusion I wish to present to myself. There will come a day, you know, when you will miss a mother fussing over you.”
“Mother,” Andrew hissed with embarrassment.
“Yes well, it is bad enough that you cannot sing like an angel as you used to. Do you remember that Adele, when Andrew would sing at Christmas and his voice was sweet and high like a crisp Christmas bell?” Adele knew that Isobel liked to tease Andrew regarding his embarrassment of his childhood preferences. “These will be your sweetest of memories,” she continued.
“It is true,” Adele admitted. “The memories of your family Christmas evenings are some of the sweetest you will carry with you, particularly after you lose them.” The loss of her parents still sat heavily in her chest and it was the reason why Isobel had insisted that Adele spend the Christmas season in town this year.
“But I will await the day when you are happy to sing for us again, Andrew. Until then, we will overlook the singing, just this once. Perhaps your singing voice will return when there is a girl here that you wish to impress, hmm?”
“Mother,” Andrew groaned yet again.
“Very well, we will open the presents.”
Andrew wasn’t quite old enough that the idea of presents didn’t overrule his perpetual dismay with the world and everyone in it. Andrew took charge at this point and sorted out the presents to their rightful intendant, while the women looked on. It was clear to see the adoration on Isobel’s face. A state she could only indulge in when he wasn’t looking.
Andrew received Adele’s stationery set for his studies and a fishing set, along with a fine pair of riding boots. Isobel preferred to save her presents for later, while Adele received three presents. The first an oriental shawl from Andrew and then a pair of kidskin gloves from Isobel. The third box, she knew what it contained by the noise it made. It was the cherry brandy chocolates from Fortnum and Mason that her husband gave to her every year. She unwrapped the present, but didn’t open the box. She’d never liked them, but she received them each year without fail. The shiny chocolates looked like dark little jewels, but each year she hoped he would get her something different. She knew they were expensive, but it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t like them and her husband either didn’t know or didn’t care. She always preferred to think that he just wasn’t aware of her dislike for them, but then she wasn’t entirely certain that it was him who’d bought them, or his secretary Wilson.
Chapter 4
“Where is my wife’s body?” Lysander asked with increasing annoyance as he sat in the Colonial Office’s Calcutta headquarters. There was a fan over his head moving air around the space, operated by a man standing on the other side of the room. It did nothing to dissipate the heat in his body. His vexation and the blasted heat of the place were making him feel faint. He never fainted, but this unrelenting humidity was taxing in ways his body couldn’t handle. He hated feeling weak and this place made him feel less than at his best.
“I have spoken to the medical staff who cared for the couple—” Mr Parsons caught himself and winced, “sorry, your wife and her...companion.” Lysander closed his eyes with the embarrassment and sheer unbelievability of this whole situation, which had quickly turned into a farce. “A Doctor Smith had seen them both and they were both quite ill.”
“And then?” Lysander pressed.
“We received word from the hotel that the pair had passed away.” Mr Parsons produced a note and placed it in front of him. Lysander leaned forward, reading the note. It stated simply that two of the hotel’s guests had died and it stated their names.
“In the case of cholera,” Mr Parsons went on, “it
is imperative that the infectiousness of the bodies is handled at the earliest opportunity to minimize the spread of contagion. Normally bodies are brought back to the coroner, but in the case of highly infectious diseases, it is important to deal with the bodies immediately. The coroner does sometimes depend on the input of dependable witnesses. I am sorry to have to discuss such delicate and uncomfortable topics.”
“I don’t care about discomfort, Mr Parsons. What makes me uncomfortable is not knowing where my wife’s body went. You are telling me that the hotel manager was the last, and the only person to see my wife’s body.”
“We can only assume that she was taken to another place to be cremated. We do not have a crematorium of our own as local practises have served sufficient for these rare moments...” Mr Parsons trailed off. “I will make some inquiries along the river to see if we can locate where her body was...where her pyre was.”
“And what of the woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one who attended the cremation of Mr Ellingwood.”
“Perhaps one of the hotel staff?”
“Come now, Mr Parsons, there are no white women serving at the hotel.”
“Another guest perhaps?”
“Following the cholera victims through the city? I dare say not.”
“Then what are you saying, my Lord?”
Lysander didn’t answer, but had a suspicion boring through his mind. It had been his first thought when he’d first heard that there was a woman watching the cremation, and there was no female body. But on further thinking, he had dismissed it. His wife was a stickler for etiquette and for following every archaic rule of propriety; he couldn’t see her knowingly doing something like this. Then again, he had never expected her to run off with a lover either.
An Absent Wife Page 3
