by Kate Morton
No matter how many times she read it, she found herself wondering at his choice of words: his guilt. She supposed he meant he was guilty for having thrown her life into disarray with his confession, and yet the word sat uneasily. Sorry, perhaps, regretful, but guilty? It seemed an odd choice. For no matter how much Nell wished it hadn’t happened, no matter that she’d found it impossible to continue on in a life she knew was false, she had never thought her parents culpable. After all, they’d only done what they thought best, what was best. They’d given her a home and love when she’d been without. That her father had thought himself guilty, had imagined that she might think him so, was disquieting. And yet it was too late now to ask him what he meant.
9
Maryborough, 1914
Nell had been with them six months when the letter arrived at the port office. A man in London was looking for a little girl, four years of age. Hair: red. Eyes: blue. She’d been missing near on eight months and the fellow—Henry Mansell, said the letter—had reason to believe she’d been boarded on a ship, possibly a transport headed for Australia. He was seeking her on behalf of his clients, the child’s family.
Standing by his desk, Hugh felt his knees buckle, his muscles liquefy. The moment he’d been dreading—had surely always known was coming—was upon him. For despite what Lil believed, children, especially children like Nell, didn’t go missing without someone raising the alarm. He sat in his chair, concentrated on breathing, looked quickly at the windows. He felt suddenly conspicuous, as if he were being watched by an unseen foe.
He ran a hand over his face then rested it across his neck. What the hell was he going to do? It was only a matter of time before the other fellows arrived on the job and saw the letter. And although it was true he was the only one who’d seen Nell waiting alone on the wharf, that wouldn’t keep them safe for long. Word would get out in the town—it always did—and someone would put two and two together. Would realise that the little girl staying with the O’Connors on Queen Street, the one with the unusual way of speaking, sounded an awful lot like the little English girl who was missing.
No, he couldn’t risk anyone reading the contents. Hugh observed himself, his hand shaking a little. He folded the letter neatly in half, then in half again, and put it inside his coat pocket. That’d take care of it for now.
He sat down. There, he felt better already. He just needed time and space to think, to work out how he was going to convince Lil that the time had come to give Nell back. Plans for the move to Brisbane were already well underway. Lil had given word to the landlord that they’d be vacating, she’d started packing their possessions, such as they were, had put word around town that there were opportunities for Hugh in Brisbane that they’d be fools to pass up.
But plans could be cancelled, would have to be cancelled. For now they knew there was someone looking for Nell, well, that changed things, didn’t it?
He knew what Lil would say to that: they didn’t deserve Nell, these people, this man, Henry Mansell, who had lost her. She’d beg him, plead with him, insist they couldn’t possibly hand Nell over to someone who could be so careless. But Hugh would make her see that it wasn’t a question of choice, that Nell wasn’t theirs, had never been theirs, that she belonged to someone else. She wasn’t even Nell any more, her own name was looking for her.
When he climbed the front stairs that afternoon, Hugh stood for a moment collecting his thoughts. As he breathed the acrid smoke drifting from the chimney, pleasant for having come from the fire that warmed his hearth, some unseen force seemed to lock him into place. He had the vague sense of standing on a threshold, the crossing of which would change everything.
He breathed deeply, pushed open the door and his two girls turned to face him. They were sitting by the fire, Nell on Lil’s lap, her long red hair hanging in wet strands as Lil combed it.
‘Pa!’ said Nell, excitement animating a face already pink with warmth.
Lil smiled at him over the top of the little one’s head. The smile that had always been his undoing. Ever since he’d first set eyes on her, coiling the ropes down at her father’s boatshed. When was the last time he’d seen that smile? It was before the babies, he knew. The babies of theirs that refused to be born right.
Hugh met Lil’s smile then set down his bag, reached inside his pocket where the letter was burning its hole, felt its smoothness beneath his fingertips. He turned towards the range where the biggest pot was steaming. ‘Dinner smells good.’ Blasted frog in his throat.
‘My ma’s morgy broth,’ said Lil, picking at the tangles in Nell’s hair. ‘You coming down with something?’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ll make you up some lemon and barley.’
‘Only a tickle,’ said Hugh. ‘No need for bother.’
‘No bother. Not for you.’ She smiled at him again and patted Nell’s shoulders. ‘There now, little one, Ma’s got to jump up now and check on the tea. You sit here until your hair dries. Don’t want you catching a chill like your pa here.’ She glanced at Hugh as she spoke, eyes loaded with a contentment that poked at his heart so that he had to turn away.
All through dinner the letter sat heavy in Hugh’s pocket, refusing to be forgotten. Like metal to a magnet, his hand was drawn. He couldn’t put his knife down to rest without his fingers slipping into his coat, rubbing against the smooth paper, death sentence to their happiness. The letter from a man who knew Nell’s family. Well, at least that’s what he said—
Hugh straightened suddenly, wondering at the way he’d immediately accepted this stranger’s claims. He thought again of the letter’s contents, pulled the lines from his memory and scanned them through for evidence. The flood of cool relief was instant. There was nothing, nothing in the letter that suggested for certain it was truth. There were any number of queer people out there engaged in all kinds of complicated schemes. There was a market for little girls in some countries, he knew that, white slavers were always on the lookout for little girls to sell—
But it was ridiculous. Even as he clutched desperately at such possibilities he knew how unlikely they were.
‘Hughie?’
He looked up quickly. Lil was watching him in a funny way.
‘You were away with the fairies.’ She laid a warm palm against his forehead. ‘Hope you’re not coming down with a fever.’
‘I’m fine.’ Sharper than he intended. ‘I’m fine, Lil love.’
She pressed her lips together. ‘I was just saying. I’m going to take this little lady in to bed. She’s had a big day, all tuckered out.’
As if on cue, Nell surrendered to a huge yawn.
‘Goodnight, Pa,’ she said contentedly when the yawn was done with. Before he knew it she was in his lap, curled into him like a warm kitten, arms snaked around his neck. He was aware as never before of the roughness of his skin, the whiskers on his cheeks. He folded his arms around her birdlike back, and closed his eyes.
‘Goodnight, Nellie love,’ he whispered into her hair.
He watched them disappear then, into the other room. His family. For in some way that he couldn’t explain, even to himself, this child, their Nell with her two long plaits, lent a solidity to him and Lil. They were a family now, an unbreakable unit of three, not just two souls who’d decided to put their lot in together.
And here he was, considering breaking it apart—
A sound in the hall and he looked up. Lil, framed beneath the wooden fretwork, watching him. Some trick of the light drew red from her dark hair and planted a glow deep within her eyes, black moons beneath their long lashes. A thread of feeling tugged at the corner where her lips met, pulling her mouth into the sort of smile that described an emotion too powerful to be expressed verbally.
Hugh smiled back tentatively and his fingers slipped once more into his pocket, ran silently across the surface of the letter. His lips parted with a soft click, tingled with the words he didn’t want to speak but wasn’t sure he could stop.
&
nbsp; Lil was by his side, then. Her fingers on his wrist sent hot shocks to his neck, her warm hand on his cheek. ‘Come to bed.’
Ah, were there ever words as sweet as those? Her voice contained a promise and—like that—his mind was made.
He slipped his hand into hers, held it firm and followed as she led.
As he passed the fireplace he tossed the paper on top. It sizzled as it caught, burned a brief reproach on his peripheral vision. But he didn’t stop, he just kept walking and never looked back.
10
Brisbane, 2005
Long before it was an antique centre, it had been a theatre. The Plaza theatre, a grand experiment in the 1930s. Plain from the outside, a huge white box cut into the Paddington hillside, its interior was another story. The vaulted ceiling, midnight blue with cut-out clouds, had been back-lit originally to create the illusion of moonlight, while hundreds of tiny lights twinkled like stars. It had done a roaring trade for decades, back in the days when trams had rattled along the terrace and Chinese gardens had flourished in the valleys, but though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the sixties.
Nell and Cassandra’s stall was directly below the proscenium arch, stage left. A rabbit-warren of shelves obscured by countless pieces of bric-a-brac, odds and ends, old books and an eclectic assortment of memorabilia. Long ago the other dealers had started calling it Aladdin’s as a joke and the name had stuck. A small wooden sign with gold lettering now proclaimed the area Aladdin’s Den.
Sitting on a three-legged stool, deep within the maze of shelves, Cassandra was finding it difficult to concentrate. It was the first time she’d been inside the centre since Nell’s death and it felt strange to sit amongst the treasures they’d assembled together. Odd that the stock should still be here when Nell was gone. Disloyal of it, somehow. Spoons that Nell had polished, price tickets with her indecipherable spider’s-web scrawl across them, books and more books. They’d been Nell’s weakness, every dealer had one. In particular, she loved books written at the end of the nineteenth century. Late Victorian with glorious printed texts and black and white illustrations. If a book bore a message from giver to recipient, so much the better. A record of its past, a hint as to the hands it had passed through in order to make its way to her.
‘Morning.’
Cassandra looked up to see Ben holding out a takeaway coffee.
‘Sorting stock?’ he said.
She brushed a few fine strands of hair from her eyes and took the proffered drink. ‘Moving things from here to there. Back again most times.’
Ben took a sip of his own coffee, eyed her over his cup. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ He reached beneath his knitted vest to withdraw a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket.
Cassandra opened the page and flattened out its creases. Printer paper, white A4, a patchy black and white picture of a house at the centre. A cottage really, stone from what she could make out, with blotches—creepers perhaps?—across the walls. The roof was tiled, a stone chimney visible behind the peak. Two pots balanced precariously at its top.
She knew what this house was, of course, didn’t need to ask.
‘Been having a bit of a dig,’ said Ben. ‘Couldn’t help myself. My daughter in London managed to make contact with someone in Cornwall and sent me this photo over the email.’
So this was what it looked like, Nell’s big secret. The house she’d bought on a whim and kept to herself all this time. Strange, the picture’s effect on her. Cassandra had left the deed on the kitchen table all weekend, had looked at it each time she walked past, thought of little else, but seeing this picture was the first time it had felt real. Everything came into sharp focus: Nell, who went to her grave not knowing who she really was, had bought a house in England and left it to Cassandra, had thought she’d understand why.
‘Ruby’s always had a knack for finding things out, so I set her to chasing up information about past owners. I thought if we knew who your grandma bought the house from, it might shed a little light on why.’ Ben pulled a small spiral notebook from his breast pocket and angled his glasses to best observe the page. ‘Do the names Richard and Julia Bennett mean anything to you?’
Cassandra shook her head, still looking at the picture.
‘According to Ruby, Nell bought the property from Mr and Mrs Bennett, who themselves bought it in 1971. They bought the nearby manor house too; turned it into a hotel. The Blackhurst Hotel.’ He looked at Cassandra hopefully.
Again she shook her head.
‘You sure?’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Ah,’ said Ben, shoulders seeming to deflate. ‘Ah well then.’ He flicked the notebook shut and leaned his arm on the nearest bookcase. ‘I’m afraid that’s the extent of my sleuthing. Long shot, I suppose.’ He scratched his beard. ‘Typical of Nell to leave a mystery like this. It’s the darnedest thing, isn’t it, a secret house in England?’
Cassandra smiled. ‘Thanks for the picture, and thank your daughter for me.’
‘You can thank her yourself when you’re over that side of the pond.’ He shook his takeaway cup then eyed the sipping hole to check that it was empty. ‘When do you think you’ll go?’
Cassandra’s eyes widened. ‘You mean to England?’
‘A picture’s all well and good, but it’s not the same as really seeing a place, is it?’
‘You think I should go to England?’
‘Why not? Twenty-first century, you could be there and back inside a week, and you’ll have a much better idea of what you want to do with the cottage.’
Despite the deed lying plain on her table, Cassandra had been so preoccupied with the theoretical fact of Nell’s cottage, she’d failed completely to consider it in practical terms: there was a cottage in England waiting for her. She scuffed at the dull timber floor then peered through her fringe at Ben. ‘I guess I should sell it?’
‘Big decision to make without setting foot inside.’ Ben tossed his cup into the overflowing rubbish bin by the cedar desk. ‘Wouldn’t hurt to take a look, eh? It obviously meant a lot to Nell, to have kept it all this time.’
Cassandra considered this. Fly to England, by herself, out of the blue. ‘But the stall . . .’
‘Pah! Centre staff’ll take care of your sales, and I’ll be here.’ He indicated the laden shelves. ‘You’ve got enough stock to last through the next decade.’ His voice softened. ‘Why not go, Cass? It wouldn’t hurt to get away for a bit. Ruby’s living in a shoebox in South Kensington, working at the V&A. She’ll show you around, look after you.’
Look after her: people were always offering to look after Cassandra. Once, a lifetime ago, she’d been a grown-up with her own responsibilities, had looked after others.
‘And what have you got to lose?’
Nothing, she had nothing to lose, no one to lose. Cassandra was suddenly weary of the topic. She hoisted a slight, yielding smile and added an ‘I’ll think about it’ for good measure.
‘There’s a girl.’ He patted her shoulder and made to leave. ‘Oh, almost forgot, I did turn up another interesting little titbit. Sheds no light on Nell and her house, but it’s a funny coincidence all the same, what with your art background, all those drawings you used to do.’
To hear years of one’s life, one’s passion, described so casually, relegated so absolutely to the past, was breathtaking. Cassandra managed to keep a weak smile afloat.
‘The estate that Nell’s house is on used to be owned by the Mountrachet family.’
The name meant nothing and Cassandra shook her head.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘The daughter, Rose, married a certain Nathaniel Walker.’
Cassandra frowned. ‘An artist . . . an American?’
‘That’s the one, portraits mostly, you know the sort of thing. Lady So-and-So and her six favourite poodles. According to my daughter, he even did one of King Edward in 1910, just before he died
. Pinnacle of Walker’s career, I’d say, though Ruby seemed unimpressed. She said his portraits weren’t his best work, that they were a bit lifeless.’
‘It’s been a while since I . . .’
‘She preferred his sketches. That’s Ruby, though, always happiest when she’s swimming against the current of popular opinion.’
‘Sketches?’
‘Illustrations, magazine pictures, black and white.’
Cassandra inhaled sharply. ‘The Maze and Fox drawings.’
Ben lifted his shoulders and shook his head.
‘Oh, Ben, they were incredible, are incredible, amazingly detailed.’ It had been so long since she’d thought about art history; it surprised her, this surge of ownership.
‘Nathaniel Walker came up briefly in a class I took on Aubrey Beardsley and his contemporaries,’ she said. ‘He was controversial, from what I remember, but I can’t recall why.’
‘That’s what Ruby said. You’re going to get on well with her. When I mentioned him she was very excited. She said they have a few of his illustrations in the new exhibition at the V&A; evidently they’re very rare.’
‘He didn’t do many,’ said Cassandra, remembering now. ‘I suppose he was too busy with the portraits, the illustrations were more of a hobby. All the same, those he did were very well regarded.’ She started. ‘I think we might have one here, in one of Nell’s books.’ She climbed onto an upturned milk crate and ran her index finger along the top shelf, stopped when she reached a burgundy spine with faded gold lettering.
