The Jade Widow

by Deborah O'Brien

  ‘Whatever is most convenient for you, Mrs Chen,’ he said. ‘Mr O’Donnell has kindly offered to apprise me of the procedures before he leaves, but I don’t imagine there will be any difficulties. You seem to be running a most efficient lodging house.’

  ‘The credit must go to Mr O’Donnell. He has done an excellent job.’

  ‘He tells me he’s off to New Zealand,’ said Mr Thomas. ‘It has always sounded like such an exotic place.’

  Amy smiled politely. Although it was only across the Tasman Sea, it might have been the end of the earth.

  While Liam showed Mr Thomas to the porter’s room, Amy returned to her office and tried to calm her ragged nerves. Panic was building inside her. Events had acquired an inevitability she couldn’t control. All along she had been waiting for him to say he had changed his mind. Now Mr Thomas’s arrival had made that nigh on impossible. She busied herself, tidying her desk and dusting the bookshelves, even though Mary had completed those very tasks only a few hours earlier. Then she topped up the inkwells and cleaned the pen nibs. After a while there was nothing left to do other than nibble at her nails, something she hadn’t done since she was a child.

  She had hoped they might take supper together in the dining room, but when she checked with Mrs Watson, she discovered Liam had requested a light meal be delivered to his study. For her part, Amy didn’t eat at all. Every time the clock chimed, it was a reminder that her time with Liam O’Donnell would soon be over. She hovered in the service hallway, trying to invent a reason to knock on his door and speak to him. Finally, she came up with one. As she tapped hesitantly, she heard a terse, ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me,’ she said softly.

  ‘Come in.’

  She opened the door a few inches. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘I was just tidying my desk in preparation for the new manager.’

  ‘Your desk wasn’t untidy in the first place,’ she said. ‘Actually, I came to ask about your discourse with Mr Thomas.’

  ‘It was most productive. He is a fine man. You have chosen well.’

  She longed to tell him that there was only one man she wanted in her life, but the words were stuck at the back of her throat.

  ‘Was that all, Mrs Chen?’ he asked.

  She hesitated for a moment, knowing this might be the last chance. For the first time in days his eyes met hers. Was it her imagination, or did she see something questioning in his gaze? Then his face became a mask.

  ‘Yes, that is all. Thank you, Mr O’Donnell. Goodnight.’

  In the morning she was shocked at the swollen eyes and pallid complexion reflected in the mirror. Although she dabbed her eyes with cold water and pinched her cheeks to produce a little colour, the result was like a grotesque version of her normal self. She donned a black bombazine dress – it suited her mood – and headed for the hotel. No point in procrastinating any longer.

  When she arrived, Mr Thomas was already behind the desk, smartly dressed in his dark suit and scarlet tie. There wasn’t any sign of Liam.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Chen. May I bring you a cup of tea?’

  She must have looked like she needed one. But a cup of tea couldn’t fix what was wrong with her. She shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Mr Thomas.’

  At that very moment Liam emerged from the hallway, wearing a frock coat and carrying a single suitcase and a silk hat. Amy had never felt so awkward in all her life. Mr Thomas saved the day by saying:

  ‘Shall I organise the carriage for you, Mr O’Donnell? You don’t want to be walking to the station with a heavy suitcase.’

  ‘I don’t mind walking.’

  ‘It’s no problem, sir. You’ll recall that we have a party of five arriving on the train. A family from Sydney. Arthur has to go and collect them anyway.’

  ‘As you will, Mr Thomas.’

  Liam placed his suitcase next to one of the sofas and stood waiting, his eyes fixed on the floor. Now and then he shifted the hat from one hand to the other.

  ‘Would you care for a cup of tea before you go?’ asked the ever-cheerful Mr Thomas.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Amy dithered for a moment, not knowing whether she should go over and speak to him or leave him in peace. What could she say anyway? What was there to say? The foyer had never seemed so vast. Finally the carriage was visible through the doorway. He picked up his suitcase, bid Mr Thomas farewell and took a few steps towards Amy.

  ‘Will you walk with me to the carriage, Mrs Chen?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Side by side they passed through the open doors and onto the footpath where the arched portico cast a protective shadow. Beyond its cover, the November sky was a cerulean blue. But how could the sky be blue on a day such as this? Blue was such a carefree colour. The sky should have been a mournful, leaden grey. And why wasn’t the rain bucketing down? Where were the thunderclaps and bolts of lightning to signify that the heavens were enraged at the events transpiring down below? Why did everything seem so . . . normal?

  ‘Ready whenever you are, Mr O’Donnell,’ Arthur called out from the driver’s seat. Liam passed him the suitcase and donned his hat.

  ‘I won’t be a moment, Arthur,’ he said.

  A train whistle was blowing insistently. Amy knew that sound all too well. The engine driver always blew his whistle as he crossed the bridge leading into town. In a minute or two the train would be stopping at the platform, ready to unload its Sydney passengers. From beside her she heard the words she’d been dreading:

  ‘Farewell, Mrs Chen. Say goodbye to Charlie for me.’

  ‘He was part of my dream, of course – but then I was part of his dream, too!’

  LEWIS CARROLL

  Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter XII

  EPILOGUE

  Friday 26th November, 1886

  It’s over. Amy knows that now. There will be no reprieve. No miracle. No fairy godmother to wave a magic wand and make everything right. She can barely look at him for fear of weeping.

  He turns and climbs onto the box seat of the carriage. The coachman flicks the reins and they move off. From the shade of the portico, Amy watches as the carriage makes its way down the main street towards the railway station. Though she waits for the top-hatted passenger to turn and wave, not once does he look around.

  In the distance the steam engine is being filled with coal and water, ready for its return journey to Sydney. Most days she would find the whooshing sound a comforting reminder of the newly built branch line, joining dusty little Millbrooke to the rest of the world. Today, however, the noise of the engine is a plaintive warning she might well have thrown away her last chance at love.

  ‘The black widow’, her friends are wont to call her, because she continues to wear sombre colours more than a dozen years after her husband’s death. Is that to be her lot in life? To remain a widow, finding comfort in her son and the grand hotel she has turned into one of the finest establishments in the colony? How did she ever imagine she could have it all?

  Amy goes back into the hotel, crosses the foyer to her office and closes the door. Slumping at the desk, she straightens the leather blotter and rearranges the nibs lying on the brass pen stand. In her wooden stationery rack there is a letter that she sealed and addressed a couple of days earlier. She had forgotten all about it. With a shaking hand she takes it from the rack and places it on the blotter. For a minute or two she just stares at the salutation written across the front, before holding the envelope aloft as though it is a crystal ball containing the clues to her future. Perhaps it does. She glances at her fob watch – ten past eleven. The Sydney train will be leaving in five minutes. She can still make it to the station, but only if she hurries. Tucking the envelope into her pocket, she doesn’t even bother to don a hat and gloves. That would waste precious time. As she rushes out of the office and into the foyer, Timothy, the porter, asks:

  ‘May I help you, Mrs Chen?’

  ‘Thank you, Timothy, but it’s something I must de
al with myself,’ she replies as she dashes past him and into the street. Three blocks to the station. She starts down the hill, walking as fast as she can without actually running. A lady should never run. It is something her aunt has taught her. Nevertheless, she needs to be there before the train leaves. Halfway down the hill she breaks into a trot, hoping nobody will see her. It just wouldn’t do for Mrs Charles Chen to be caught careering along like a hoyden.

  By the time Amy reaches the station she is out of breath, but the train is still there, hissing steam. In front of the building the hotel’s carriage is empty and the horse listlessly nibbles at the scrappy patch of grass which passes for a lawn. Arthur, the coachman, appears with a trolley piled full of luggage. Gathered beside him is a family from Sydney, who have booked the Oriental Suite for the weekend.

  ‘Mrs Chen, is everything all right?’ Arthur asks, but she races past him with a nod to the newcomers.

  ‘Shall I wait for you?’

  ‘No, thank you, Arthur. I’ll be fine on my own.’

  She makes her way through the archway, past the ticket office and onto the platform. Not a passenger in sight, only a few locals waiting to farewell their family and friends. Steam is pouring in urgent gushes from the pistons, grey smoke billowing from the funnel. The guard blows his whistle. Any minute now, the train will be moving.

  Abandoning any vestige of decorum, Amy begins to run, peering in the windows of the carriages as she races past each one. When she reaches the far end of the platform, desperate tears are welling in her eyes. Just as she is wondering whether he has disappeared in a puff of smoke, there he is, sitting next to a window in the very first carriage. Frantically she calls out to him but can barely hear her own voice above the snorting of the engine. Then he happens to glance out the window.

  ‘Amy!’ he mouths the word through the window.

  He has never called her by her first name before, not even by mistake. All of a sudden he is standing up and heading towards the door.

  ‘Amy!’ he repeats. This time she can hear his voice. Before she knows it, he has leapt onto the platform and taken her ungloved hand in his. Next he is pressing it against his lips.

  ‘I knew it couldn’t end like that,’ he says in the lilting voice that can make her believe anything is possible.

  In her head the words ‘please stay’ are playing over and over to the rhythm of her pounding heart, but something stops her from saying them aloud. Instead, she gently detaches her hand and removes the envelope from her pocket.

  ‘I forgot to give you this,’ she says, handing it to him. ‘You might need it for your fresh start in New Zealand.’

  He glances at the salutation, written in copperplate script on the front of the envelope, and gives her a probing look, his eyes glittering like sunlight dancing on the green waters of the creek.

  ‘To Whom it May Concern,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a testimonial.’

  ‘I know,’ he replies.

  ‘Open it,’ she urges.

  He slips the parchment out of the envelope and reads it.

  To Whom it May Concern

  It affords me great pleasure to testify to the conscientious nature and business capacity of Mr Liam O’Donnell, who has been Manager of the Emporium Hotel ever since its establishment in December, 1885 and now leaves my employ of his own volition to pursue his career in foreign climes.

  Mr O’Donnell has undertaken his job in a most efficient manner whilst maintaining a uniformly affable and courteous demeanour. Furthermore, I can attest to the excellence of his penmanship and the thoroughness of his attention to detail. Above all, I have appreciated his sense of initiative, which has been evident in the setting up of the hotel itself and on many later occasions, most notably at the banquet held in honour of Sir Henry Parkes in May, 1886. Sir Henry himself remarked favourably upon this very fact.

  Mr O’Donnell’s personal and professional merit will do justice to any position he might undertake and I commend him to you with the greatest of confidence. Meanwhile, he will be sorely missed here in Millbrooke.

  Respectfully yours,

  A. Chen

  Mrs Charles Chen

  Proprietor, Emporium Hotel

  A smile hovers on his lips, though the tears in his eyes tell her it isn’t a happy one. After a moment he says, ‘A real testimonial . . . thank you. I just wish . . .’

  ‘So do I,’ she replies as the guard approaches, his whistle piercing the moment. ‘Good luck, Liam,’ she says in a hoarse voice.

  The train has started to move out. He places the envelope in his coat pocket and jumps aboard.

  ‘Be happy,’ she calls, but the chugging of the engine drowns out her farewell. She remains on the platform, glued to the spot, watching the train until it disappears around the bend. Then she wipes her eyes with her handkerchief and proceeds out of the station and back up the hill. Although it hurts more than she could have imagined, Liam was right. There will never be anyone who can live up to Charles Chen’s memory. Not even a dashing green-eyed Irishman with the ability to make her heart race whenever she was near him. She will always be the jade widow, living in the china cabinet. Not necessarily a prisoner of her past, but a person who honours it.

  The air is fragrant with the perfume of lilac bushes in full bloom. She stops to smell a spike of purple flowers hanging over a picket fence. Lilac – the colour of half mourning. But how can anyone be half in mourning, she wonders, and how can a person set a timetable on grief, as if it is a steam engine due to depart at a certain time? Grief has its own timetable; Amy knows that for a fact.

  In her desk drawer she keeps a letter from Sir Henry Parkes, received a few weeks after his visit. It is penned in a bold, exuberant script that seems to reflect his personality. On a separate sheet there are two verses of a poem by Mr Whitman, which are so beautiful Amy has learned them by heart. Though they were written to commemorate Mr Lincoln’s death, they might equally apply to General Gordon . . . or Charles Chen.

  ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

  And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

  I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

  Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

  Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

  And thought of him I love.’

  Soon the lilac blossoms will fade for another year. In their place the heady perfume of lavender will herald the arrival of summer. Six whole weeks with Charlie. She isn’t sure how she will tell him that Liam is gone. A letter, perhaps. But she isn’t ready to write it yet. Not while things are still so raw. She tries to think of something happy instead. Daniela tottering on her tiny feet. Bao Yu uttering her first words in Chinese and English. Eliza coming home next year, a fully-fledged doctor. Ready to establish her women’s hospital. Or ready for a spring wedding. Or could she possibly have them both?

  Amy is so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice a bulky figure heading down the hill. Not until he’s a few yards away. He too is preoccupied, reading a letter he must have collected from the post office. That’s why he doesn’t see her until the very last moment.

  When they are level, Amy says, ‘Good morning, Papa.’ Although she hasn’t uttered those words in many years, it seems as though it was only yesterday.

  Her father turns towards her with a look of sheer astonishment on his face. His mouth drops open. For a second she’s sure he is about to reply. Then he keeps walking. What did she expect? That he would embrace her affectionately and invite her for morning tea? But at least she has elicited a response, even if it is only an expression of surprise. And she has finally put an end to her own participation in the grim game of the past thirteen years. Perhaps in time her father will abandon the game as well. Maybe he’s just been waiting for Amy to make the first move. She knows better than to think this is the start of a miraculous reconciliation. But it might just be the first tentative step t
owards acknowledging each other’s existence.

  She continues on her way, reaching the top of the hill before she realises the stabbing pain, which has always accompanied an encounter with her father, hasn’t eventuated. Not today. Not a single twinge. As she looks down Miller Street from the highest point in town, the first thing she sees is the fairy-tale turret of the Emporium Hotel rising above the other buildings, a Millbrooke landmark. It always fills her heart with pride.

  And it strikes her that you don’t need to travel to far-flung places to make a fresh start. You can do it in your very own town. It’s only a matter of taking the first step. She marches briskly down the hill towards the hotel. Outside the covered entrance, Arthur is helping the new guests to disembark from the carriage, while Timothy is proffering hot wash cloths from a basket. Inside the building, Mr Thomas will be at the reception desk, awaiting the incoming guests and patiently dealing with the others.

  As she comes closer to the hotel, Amy straightens the folds of her skirt and smooths her hair. She can hear the new arrivals remarking enthusiastically upon the hot towels.

  ‘What a positively charming idea,’ says a lady in a floral hat, daintily wiping her hands.

  ‘It is an old Chinese custom,’ Timothy explains as he has done a hundred times before.

  When she reaches the portico, Amy adopts her best smile and turns towards the assembled guests. In a confident voice she says:

  ‘Good morning, everyone. I am Mrs Charles Chen. Welcome to the Emporium Hotel.’