Secrets and Lies

by Janet Woods

  Esmé took hers out on to the veranda. It was almost twilight, and the air was tinted with a dusky purple haze.

  It wasn’t long before she heard a plane fly over. A short time later the mine manager’s truck arrived in a cloud of dust.

  A lanky figure unfolded from the front seat, and then reached inside for his bag. He straightened up and turned. For a moment he stared at her, then a smile widened across his face as he drawled, ‘As I live and breathe; you’re the last person I expected to see in this neck of the woods. G’day . . . Esmé Carr. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.’

  ‘Leo Thornton?’ The first thing that came into her mind was his mouth on hers, and several seconds of intense pleasure. Colour rose to her cheeks. She shouldn’t have remembered that when she was still getting over Liam.

  He laughed, obviously remembering it too, and said under his breath, ‘Shame on you, Esmé Carr.’ Then louder, ‘Where’s your patient?’

  ‘Inside . . . actually, he’s not my patient. I’m just visiting my friend Minnie, and will be leaving in the morning.’

  ‘Esmé did the initial assessment while I did the peddling,’ Minnie said from the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Nurse Prichard. We meet again.’ His bluer than blue eyes engaged Esmé’s. ‘Since you did the initial examination, perhaps you’d tell me about the patient, Nurse Carr?’

  ‘It’s a male, aged nearly six. His name is Brian Tomlinson. His palm is badly lacerated and needs several stitches. I removed two small pieces of glass and washed out the wound, but I suspect there might be more at a deeper level. He’s lost a small amount of blood, but that’s stabilized. Shock is apparent, but it’s under control. He has movement in the fingers, but I haven’t worked them too hard. The boy has a sizeable haematoma and, as you can see, a biggish chunk of glass stuck in his cheekbone. His head aches and his vision is blurred a little. He mentioned he felt sleepy when he tried to focus. Mildly concussed, I’d say.’ She smiled at the boy. ‘Brian also has a parrot that swears.’

  ‘Very thorough.’ Leo’s smile was turned Minnie’s way, easy and relaxed. ‘Do you agree with those observations, Nurse Prichard?’

  ‘I’m not sure about the swearing parrot, but I did a secondary examination of the patient and reached the same conclusions,’ Minnie said.

  They barely fit around the examination couch, and Mrs Tomlinson was shunted into the waiting room. Esmé stood on one side of the table, while Leo took over the other. Minnie busied herself preparing iodine, lint and fresh bandages.

  ‘Nice work, Es,’ he said, giving her a quick smile as he unwrapped the dressing and examined it.

  There was a grumble of a man’s voice in the waiting room outside, and Esmé guessed that the boy’s father had turned up.

  Leo quickly examined the wounds and gave Brian a smile. ‘I’m going to give you an injection to deaden the area, old chap. It will sting a bit, but I expect you’ve felt worse. You’re not scared of needles, are you?’

  ‘I’m not scared of nuthin.’ A statement that ran out of bravado when Brian gave a yelp or two as the needle went in.

  ‘Good,’ Leo said a couple of moments later. He examined Brian’s palm through a magnifying glass, and pulled several tiny chips of glass from the wound with tweezers. Then he began to pull the jagged edges of flesh together with swift, neat stitches. ‘I understand you have a parrot that swears. What’s his name?’

  ‘Cusser.’

  ‘Very apt.’ Leo chuckled. ‘What does he cuss?’

  Minnie aimed a mock frown at him. ‘Never you mind, Dr Thornton. Shame on you for encouraging him. Don’t you dare say one cuss word, Brian Tomlinson, else I’ll stitch your tongue to your big toe, then we’ll see how many chairs you can climb on.’

  Leo and Brian exchanged a grin.

  ‘I’m going to remove that glass now. It might hurt a little.’ Leo removed it easily, then swabbed the wound with iodine, and because it was deep, he closed the wound with one suture.

  The boy was handed over to his parents with, ‘He should rest until morning. The lump will go down in a few days and the bruise will fade in its own time. That hand will hurt a bit when the injection wears off, though, and he’ll have a tiny scar on his face.’ Leo handed over a bottle with a few pills in it. ‘Give him half an Aspro every four hours if he needs it. Call me if he starts to vomit or if his headache worsens overnight. I’ll be at the mine manager’s house. Bring Brian to Nurse Prichard in ten days, and she’ll remove the stitches.’ He gently ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Don’t fall off chairs with a glass in your hand, any more. All right?’

  Brian nodded. ‘Reckon I won’t, then.’

  Leo took a barley-sugar twist from his pocket and handed it to Brian. ‘That’s for being a good lad.’

  ‘Cor . . . thanks, Doc,’ he said.

  After they’d gone, Leo turned to them, his smile expansive. ‘I hope you ladies will join me for dinner in the canteen? It’s not often I get the opportunity to dine with two English roses at the same time.’

  They dressed for the occasion. Esmé, who had nothing to change into except fresh underwear, a pair of brown slacks and a cream blouse, borrowed her own dress – the one Minnie had taken to get married in.

  ‘Have it back if you like, I’ve looked after it,’ Minnie told her, shamefaced. ‘I’ll never wear it again. And I’ve got ten pounds saved from that money Wally stole from you. I know it’s not much, but take that as well. At least I’ve paid something back.’

  ‘It’s not your responsibility. It’s Wally’s.’

  Minnie nearly choked on her laughter. ‘You’ll never get it out of him. Take it, Es. I’m responsible, and it’s the one thing that will make me feel better about what happened.’

  Outside, the cicadas were a noisy, high-pitched orchestra. The screech stopped momentarily when they closed the door, and then started up again.

  ‘Noisy critters,’ Esmé said.

  ‘You get used to them after a while. I like your Leo Thornton,’ Minnie remarked as they walked through a soft, warm twilight towards the canteen. ‘Where did you get to meet him?’

  ‘My brother brought him to the house a couple of times.’ Esmé pressed her hand against her stomach to slow down the carousel of horses galloping around it. ‘And he’s not my Doc Thornton . . . he’s yours, really.’

  ‘If he were mine I’d keep him under lock and key.’ Minnie’s scoff of laughter warmed her ears. ‘He could barely take his eyes off you, and you blushed every time he looked at you. It felt as though I was invisible. He was good with the boy, wasn’t he? There was barely a squawk out of Brian.’

  But Esmé’s mind had already wandered off course. To that New Year’s Eve party.

  ‘Why the sigh?’ Minnie said, and Esmé’s blush rose to the surface when she answered absently, ‘Leo kissed me under the mistletoe once. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘It must have been some kiss, you’re almost comatose from the effect that thinking about it produces. Tell me more.’

  She laughed. ‘It was the first time I’d been kissed. I can’t remember it clearly. It was New Year’s Eve. The caterers had been late and my sister Livia was in a froth over them not arriving on time. She looked pretty and was wearing a dark red dress—’

  ‘Leave out the domestic details, just get to the important bit.’

  ‘Important bit?’

  ‘The kiss, you dope!’

  They both jumped as a figure loomed out of the darkness, and Leo said smoothly, ‘Ah, there you are, ladies. I’m sorry if I scared you, I was just coming to collect the pair of you.’

  There was a whiff of hospital disinfectant about him as he inserted himself between them, offering an arm apiece.

  She had a flicker of homesickness for the comfortable den that was Eavesham House, life on the wards, and Denton coming home to her sister, smelling of carbolic soap. There was a lot of love in her sister’s home, despite the silly squabble they’d had.

  ‘I believe we have the choice of rabb
it stew and dumplings, or dumplings with rabbit stew, for dinner.’

  ‘And there will be canned fruit with Ideal milk for dessert,’ Minnie said.

  ‘Apparently there will be tapioca pudding as well, in honour of my visit.’

  The three of them groaned and Minnie said, ‘I should have known I’d have to pay a penalty in calling you out.’

  ‘I’m glad you did, Nurse. It gave me the chance to catch up with Esmé again. Ben has suggested that you fly out with me in the morning, Es. It will save him having to drive you to Melbourne.’

  ‘I don’t have to be back on board until evening.’

  ‘Good, because I have a day off tomorrow. We can drop in on my parents, and you can spend the day with me if you like, so I can repay the hospitality I enjoyed in your sister’s home.’

  Put like that she could hardly refuse. She resolved that she wasn’t going to get involved with Leo, however charming he was. After her failed engagement to Liam, she doubted if she’d ever trust a man again.

  But when she hesitated, because she had come here to visit Minnie, it was Minnie who answered for her by saying, ‘Of course she will. I have a stocktake to do tomorrow.’

  The aeroplane was a Moth biplane, with a single engine. They posed in front of it while Minnie manoeuvred them into position to capture them in the viewing window of her Box Brownie. Her hand batted them this way and that until she had them posed with Leo’s arm around Esmé. ‘Don’t move,’ she called out.

  They aimed cheesy smiles at the camera and then at each other.

  ‘Another one for luck. Try and look casual, Es.’

  She pulled on her best casual face and gazed up at him. ‘Is this your usual job?’

  ‘No . . . I’m filling in time before I go back to England, and I’m gaining experience by acting as a locum, since I’ve got my own plane and a pilot’s licence. They give me the patients who are unlikely to need ambulance services.’

  ‘Have you had your licence long?’

  His grin filled with mischief. ‘Not very long; are you scared?’

  ‘A little . . . I’ve never been in an aircraft.’

  ‘You’ll be fine once you get over your nerves.’ He handed her a leather flying helmet and jacket. ‘Put those on, it can be cold upstairs. Make sure your straps are nice and tight. I don’t want to see you trying to fly by yourself if we hit an air pocket.’

  ‘That’s not very reassuring, Leo.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Es, you’re going to love flying, and I’ll check the straps for you.’

  When he was doing that task, he gazed into her eyes. ‘The pilot usually gets a kiss from the passenger for luck.’

  ‘You fly this plane on luck instead of fuel?’

  ‘Stop being a wise guy and kindly purse your lips,’ he said from the side of his mouth in gangster style. It was a tender, lingering kiss, one to add to her growing mental index of Leo Thornton kisses. She sighed when it ended. ‘That was nice, Leo.’

  ‘Can’t you do better than that, Es my darling?’

  ‘Sensational then.’

  His smile illuminated her world. ‘Yes . . . it was. Thanks for not being a shrinking violet. I must do it again some time.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Soon they were trundling along the runway, and her stomach was left behind as they lifted off. They circled the tiny airport, the noise of the engine almost deafening and the smell of hot oil in her nostrils. She waved goodbye to Minnie and Ben with some regret. The mine area seemed tiny from the air, a small scar hiding its golden riches in the midst of forest. Soon, the currents were lifting them gently over the hills and the engine had settled down to a steady thrum.

  ‘All right, Es?’ Leo shouted from behind her and she waved her hand.

  After a while they entered an expanse of cleared land.

  She had not expected that they’d drop in on the family sheep station for lunch. A truck headed out from the homestead with two dogs chasing after it. A man who looked a lot like Leo, but who was shorter and slightly older, hopped out, just when Leo was lifting her down from the plane.

  The two men exchanged big smiles, punched each other on the shoulder, and then had a short, friendly wrestling match. Boys never grew up, she thought, smiling to herself as she remembered Adam and Luke often doing the same thing.

  ‘Meet Nurse Esmé Carr. Es, this is my brother, Alex.’

  Alex folded her hands between his, which were calloused. ‘Where did you find such an exquisite creature?’

  ‘At the mine.’ Leo gazed down at her, not bothering to hide the admiration in his expression. ‘She’s something special, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Yes . . . but she hasn’t realized it yet.’

  Esmé couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Leo Thornton, behave yourself.’

  The dogs arrived, tongues hanging out and milling around them with flaying tails and yips and yaps as they competed for a pat. There was a chaotic but friendly feel to the scene, a bit like when Denton arrived home from work and became the centre of attention of his wife and children, as if they were stars revolving about his moon.

  The three of them squeezed into the cabin of the truck and with the dogs on the tray, headed back to the homestead.

  There, she was introduced to Gwen and Bob Thornton, the parents of the brothers. Esmé was eyed with a certain amount of friendly interest by the couple, and questioned about her background.

  Nevertheless, it was a pleasant two hours, and as they were about to depart for Melbourne, Gwen whispered, ‘Leo’s never brought a lady friend to meet us before. I despair of either of our sons getting married and providing us with grandchildren.’

  Esmé didn’t know quite what to say, except, ‘My brother met Leo at medical school in England and they became good friends.’ And in case they had matchmaking on their minds, she added, ‘We’re just acquaintances.’

  When Leo took her back to the ship he gazed down at her. ‘Will you be my girl, Es?’

  It was tempting because she liked him a lot.

  But it wouldn’t be fair to him. ‘Leo, I don’t think it’s a good idea when you live in Australia and I’m in England. Besides, your mother has practically proposed to me on your behalf already.’

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah, well, I reckon she must’ve liked you as much as I do. We could work the distance thing. One of us would have to move. I’m willing. Right . . . what’s your next excuse.’

  ‘I’m still getting over a broken engagement.’

  ‘Good . . . I’m glad you’re getting over it because there will be room for me in your life, now.’ He gazed down at her, smiling. ‘Think about it.’

  He was incorrigible. He was delicious. She was about to laugh when he kissed her. It was a fiery little scorcher of a kiss . . . every bit as delectable as she remembered, and leaving all her bits glowing. It didn’t take much of his flame to light a bonfire under her. Lord . . . she hadn’t expected this, not so soon after Liam. In fact it was different altogether than what she’d felt towards Liam.

  ‘Now, what do you think?’ he said.

  ‘I think you’d better not kiss me again, Leo Thornton. I don’t want any complications.’

  ‘There’s nothing complicated about love. Me . . . Leo the jungle boy. You, Essy the tabby cat.’ He beat at his chest, and when he was about to yodel she kissed him to put a stop to it and it faded off into an ecstatic growl.

  She fled up the gangplank, past the grinning officer on watch. Leo waved and went dancing off, executing a sideways heel click in the air without mishap.

  He turned and blew a kiss towards the ship, shouting, ‘I’ll see you in ten weeks, my lovely.’

  Ten

  Meggie couldn’t understand why she felt so guilty, when Foxglove House belonged to her.

  A year had flown past since her grandfather had handed her the key. She’d got to know him well in the time they’d spent together, and enjoyed his company as well as the secret they shared.

  It
was hard to be not quite grown-up. Her breasts had grown large enough to be noticeable. One day her liberty bodices disappeared, and two white cotton brassieres occupied the space instead. She’d also found a packet of sanitary napkins with a belt folded up on top, to attach them to. ‘When will I need these, and why does this unpleasant thing have to happen?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘It would be best if you asked your Auntie Es to explain when she next comes home. She’s a nurse.’

  Esmé had laughed at that. ‘Ah . . . so your mother has left it to me to deliver the coming-of-age message. Do you want the detailed version complete with ovarian function, or the standard version with hygiene included?’

  ‘I’d prefer to know everything, as long as it’s not too medical. My friend Susan has told me something about how babies are made . . . and it sounds so ridiculous that I don’t know whether to believe her or not. It’s embarrassing, and all the girls at school snigger about it.’

  Sex, Esmé imagined. What did she know about it? Her own experience was nil, though her emotions were telling her it was better if love was involved. She supposed she could manage the anatomical. ‘Fetch your coat then, we’ll go for a walk. Shadow will come with us, no doubt.’ And a little later . . . ‘It’s like this, Meggie Moo . . .’

  Meggie had never felt so embarrassed in her life. Becoming a woman seemed a rather untidy transition. ‘It sounds rather a bore,’ she said, when her aunt finished, pretending indifference.

  ‘Oh, you learn to cope with it . . . you have to, I’m afraid.’

  She asked Aunt Es the question she was burning to know the answer to. ‘How do babies get inside a woman? Susan said you have to be married first. Did my mother do it with Richard Sangster.’

  ‘It’s quite possible to have a baby before you’re married. Morally, it’s not the done thing because people will no longer respect you. So, yes, being married is a rather sensible idea if one wants a baby. I do think it would be better if we didn’t talk about the personal relationships of your mother.’

  ‘She hardly ever talks about him to me, and there are things I want to know. Mother always brushes me off. I mean . . . I’m Richard Sangster’s daughter, and nearly everyone in the house knew him, and they know more about him than I do.’