The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

  Alexander got up like an old man, put out a hand and rested it briefly on Jade’s head. “Don’t worry about that, my dear. I won’t send you away from Anna. What kind of thanks would that be for so much devotion? You’re right, Anna is your baby.”

  From there, down a short flight of steps to Elizabeth’s suite of rooms, which he hadn’t entered since she was able to leave her sickbed. It had changed, he noticed. His own attempt at furnishing it through the offices of his Sydney hotel had gone by the wayside in favor of what were obviously Elizabeth’s preferences—less gilt, fewer mirrors, chintz instead of brocade, all of it blue, blue, blue. The color Ruby called cheerless.

  What is the matter with me, that all this can have gone on since Anna’s birth, and I, the master of this house, have had no knowledge of it? Yes, I am away a lot—who else can I trust to survey and build the road to Lithgow? But no one asked me, no one told me. Except, finally, my two-year-old daughter. I am an outsider in a house full of women. Maggie Summers…A fat spider in my web. I ought to have known that. Elizabeth never cared for her, now I see why. Well, she and Summers can move out of the third floor, find a house in Kinross. Let her keep it. I’ll hire a new housekeeper. Go on hiring new housekeepers until I find one who suits all of us. Who doesn’t loathe the Chinese, who doesn’t have cronies like Biddy Kelly who go to church on Sundays to spread the gossip.

  “Elizabeth?” he called, going no farther than the boudoir.

  She appeared at once, still dressed in her wine-red riding habit, her eyes wide.

  “That’s a foolish color to choose for a habit when you ride a white horse,” he observed, bowing to her. “It’s smothered in white hairs.”

  A rueful smile flickered; she inclined her head. “You’re absolutely right, Alexander. The next one will be bone-colored.”

  “And do you ride every day?” he asked, strolling across to the window. “I like the summer, it stays light much longer.”

  “I like the summer too,” she said nervously, “and yes, I do ride almost every day. Unless I fancy driving down to Kinross.”

  A silence fell; he continued to stare out the window.

  “What’s the matter, Alexander? Why are you here?”

  “How much do you see of Anna? Do you, for instance, see as much of her as you do of your horse?”

  Her breath caught audibly, she started to shake. “No, I suppose not,” she said dully. “Jade has taken Anna over to the point where I always feel a little unwelcome in the nursery.”

  “Coming from the child’s mother, Elizabeth, that smacks of an excuse. You’re perfectly aware, I’m sure, that Jade is your servant and obligated to obey orders. Did you try very hard?”

  Two crimson spots flared in Elizabeth’s bleached face; she flinched, turned in a tight circle as if nailed to the floor through one foot, squeezed her hands together. “No, I didn’t try very hard,” she whispered.

  “How old are you now?”

  “I’ll be twenty in September.”

  “How time flies. Twice a mother at nineteen, twice almost dead from the business, and now free of it forever. No!” he barked. “Don’t cry, Elizabeth! This isn’t a moment for tears. Hear me out, then you can cry.”

  From where she stood Elizabeth could see only the back of him. What was it? Why was he suffering? Because he was badly suffering. She watched him gain control of himself, square his shoulders; when he spoke again it was more gently.

  “Elizabeth, I don’t blame you in the least for handing your children over to women as devoted and single-minded as Butterfly Wing and Jade, especially because you’ve never had a girlhood. I would think that these daily rides, the drives into Kinross, the sheer and sudden freedom have gone to your head like champagne. Why should they not? You’ve done as much of your duty as even old man Murray’s god could ask, and now the duty’s over. Were I in your shoes, I’d kick up my heels a little too.” He sighed. “However, though your duty to me is a thing of the past, your duty to your children is ongoing. I’m not forbidding you to go riding, or driving, or walking, or whatever else takes your fancy, because I know your pleasures are innocent. But you must have a care for our daughters. In two or three years Nell will be old enough for me to take her off your hands, but I am afraid that Anna is no Nell.”

  The crimson spots had faded; Elizabeth dropped into a chair, cradling her cheeks in her hands. “You’ve seen it too.”

  “So you haven’t been completely blind?”

  “No, though Jade always tells me that Anna is having a bad day, or has a cold, or has hurt her back. I’ve wondered, but I’ve never put my suspicions to the test. And you are too kind. I deserve every reproach, every criticism you must be thinking. How did you come to realize that Anna is a little backward?”

  “Nell came to see me this evening and asked me what’s wrong with Anna. She can’t hold her head up, her eyes roll, said our elder daughter. So I went and forced the truth out of Jade.” He turned to confront her, face calm, eyes remote. “Anna isn’t a little backward, Elizabeth. She’s—mental.”

  Elizabeth began to weep, but silently. “It happened at her birth,” she said clearly. “Margaret and Ruby worked on her for five minutes before she took a breath. It isn’t hereditary, Alexander, I’m sure it isn’t hereditary.”

  “Och, so I am sure of that!” he said impatiently. “I daresay there’s a purpose behind it all, though what the purpose could be, I don’t know. We have one very clever little girl, and one mental little girl. Maybe that evens up the odds, who can tell?”

  He moved away from the window in the direction of the door, then stopped. “Elizabeth, look at me! Look at me! Before this goes on any longer, we have a decision to make. Namely, what to do with Anna. We can keep her here, or put her into a home. If we keep her, you and Jade are facing a lifetime of caring for a poor wee soul who can’t care for herself. I’m sure that we can find a home where she won’t be mistreated—in matters like this, money is all-powerful. What do you want to do?”

  “Which would you choose, Alexander?”

  “To keep her, of course,” he said, surprise in his voice. “However, it’s not I will bear the brunt of her. If anything ever happened to Jade, what would you do? What could you do?”

  “Keep her,” said Elizabeth. “I will keep her.”

  “Then we are at one about it. By the way, I’m going to sack Maggie Summers. That will inconvenience us for a while—I want her out of here tomorrow, not a day later. I feel sorrier for Summers, he likes to be at my beck and call and will resent an exile to Kinross. But it has to be. I’ll advertise in the Sydney Morning Herald for a housekeeper.”

  “Why not use an agency for domestic servants?”

  “Because I’d rather do the interviewing myself.” He took out his gold fob watch, flicked its cover open and consulted it. “You’d better hurry, my dear. Ruby is due at seven.”

  “I’m not going down to dinner, if you’ll excuse me. I have to find Jade and talk to her. And start to know Anna.”

  He picked up her hand and kissed it lightly. “As you wish. Thank you, Elizabeth. I couldn’t have blamed you had you chosen to put Anna in a home, but I’m very glad that you didn’t.”

  THE NEWS about Anna fell upon Ruby like a shower of boiling water. Alexander didn’t mention it until they were in the library with cheroots and fine old cognac, having passed off Elizabeth’s absence as a slight indisposition. Her sensitive nose had sniffed a domestic problem because she knew Alexander far better than his wife ever would; he got a certain look in his eyes, a certain expression on his face. Since the advent of Anna she hadn’t seen these signs in him, as if he had given up the ghost on Elizabeth, had relegated her to some unimportant corner of his mind. Now they were back.

  The reason for their presence was revealed when he told her about Anna—how he had come to make the discovery, how Elizabeth had reacted. But it took a large swallow of cognac to nerve Ruby into a reply.

  “Oh, my love, my love, I am so sorry!”
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  “No sorrier than I or Elizabeth. Still, it’s a done thing, it can’t be altered or ignored. Elizabeth thinks, and I agree with her, that the damage was done at birth. She bears none of the usual stigmata most mental children do—in fact, she’s very pretty and well proportioned. If she’s lying down in her crib, you’d never know unless you looked at her eyes. As Nell said, they roll around aimlessly. Jade says she does learn, but that it takes a long, long time to teach her even something as simple as eating from a spoon.”

  “The secretive little bitch!” said Ruby, taking another gulp of cognac. “Jade, I mean,” she added when Alexander looked at her with brows raised. “Not, mind you, that knowing about it earlier could have helped. Elizabeth’s right, the child didn’t breathe. Had I known, perhaps I wouldn’t have tried so hard to make her breathe, but I wasn’t to know. I just wanted Elizabeth’s ordeal to be for something rather than nothing.”

  “But it was, Ruby, it was,” he said, and reached out to take her hand, squeeze it. “The ancient Greeks said that hubris in men was a crime against the gods and would be punished. I’ve grown hubristic—too much success, too much wealth, too much—power. Anna is my punishment.”

  “I’ve heard not one whisper of it in the town, though Biddy Kelly nursed her for seven months.”

  White teeth flashed in a broad smile. “That’s because Jade caught her and Maggie Summers having a laugh about it in the kitchen. Out came her dagger on the spot! She told them she’d cut their throats if they tattled, and they believed her.”

  “Good for Jade!”

  “Maggie Summers moves out tomorrow. I’ve told Summers.”

  Ruby shifted in her chair as if it were uncomfortable, then took both Alexander’s hands in hers. “So are you going to try to keep Anna’s condition a secret?”

  “Och, no, of course not! That would be to imprison the wee mite. There’s no shame involved, Ruby. At least I don’t think so. Nor, I imagine, does Elizabeth. I want Anna to be able to go about when she learns to walk, as walk she will, I’m sure of it. I want all of Kinross to know that wealth and privilege cannot insulate a family from tragedy.”

  “You haven’t really told me how Elizabeth feels, Alexander. Did she know that Anna is mental?”

  “I don’t believe so. She’d convinced herself that the child was a little backward. A little backward!” He laughed, not a happy sound. “My wife has been too busy worshipping that wretched horse as if it were a goddess. Combing it, brushing it, stroking it—what is it between young women and horses?”

  “Power, Alexander. Muscles moving under a beautiful skin. Being dwarfed by power. Clever of you to give her a mare—the sight of a stallion’s prick might have been too much.”

  “You’re a most unsatisfactory confidante, Ruby. Can’t you ever phrase things nicely?”

  “Hah!” said Ruby, her fingers playing with his. “What’s the point of being nice?” She transferred to his lap and pillowed her face on his hair—so grey, so suddenly! “Are you any closer to knowing how Elizabeth’s mind works?”

  “No, not a bit.”

  “She’s different since Anna’s birth. Her contacts with me are absolutely general—she invites me to lunch if Theodora is here, otherwise to dinner when you are. She’s unwilling to be intimate the way she used to be, when we had—oh, such conversations! About everything and anything. Nowdays she’s gone into realms entirely her own,” said Ruby sadly.

  “I need you,” Alexander said, face between her breasts. “I could come down to Kinross later tonight, if you’ll have me.”

  “Always,” said Ruby. “Always.”

  She went down alone in the cable car, looking across gas-lit Kinross, a sprinkling of greenish sparks. The engines chugged, the satanic glow of fires illuminated the sheds wherein Apocalypse ore was transformed into Apocalypse gold, and far off on Sung’s hill the pagodas glistened as the moon soared to its zenith. I am a part of it, though I never wanted to be. What awful vengeance love wreaks! Were it not for Alexander Kinross, I would be no more than fate intended me to be—a shady lady living on the edge of expulsion, if not of extinction.

  FROM THAT day when Anna’s disability was made manifest to her, Elizabeth began to go to church. But not to the Presbyterian kirk; she appeared the following Sunday at St. Andrew’s Church of England holding Nell by the hand, and with Anna in a perambulator Jade pushed as far as the church gate, there to wait for service to end, a wisp of a Chinese girl trying to make herself invisible.

  Astonished and overjoyed, the Reverend Mr. Peter Wilkins greeted Kinross’s first lady with becoming deference, made sure that she understood that the front pew on the right had always been reserved for the residents of Kinross House. The town was buzzing with the news that Mrs. Summers had been sacked, with unsubstantiated rumors that something was amiss in the Kinross family; all of which made the minister even more attentive.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilkins,” said Elizabeth coolly, “but I would much prefer to take a pew at the back. My younger child, Anna, is mentally very slow, so I would rather be where I can wheel her outside if she isn’t happy.”

  And so it was done. Kinross town learned that Anna Kinross was mental in a way that negated gossip, which spiked Maggie Summers’s guns beautifully.

  The exchange with Jade hadn’t been acrimonious; after a bout of tears the two women amicably agreed to share custody of Anna so that Jade could have some respite while Elizabeth wasn’t deprived of Crystal or The Pool. This venture to church was the start of a new regime at Kinross House, a public declaration of Anna’s handicap as well as a notification that Mrs. Kinross was, now that she had recovered her health, not as godless as her husband. Glory be to God!

  Perhaps that glory was a little tarnished if any of the churchgoers saw Elizabeth’s first stop after service was ended; she called into the Kinross Hotel for lunch with Ruby, who welcomed her fervently, kissed her, hugged her.

  “Does this indicate that you’re back to normal?” Ruby asked, holding her at arm’s length, eyes shining.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, smiling, “if by that you mean we are the best of friends as well as holding equal shares in Alexander. I’ve finally grown up.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame.” Ruby plucked Anna out of her pram. “No, no, snookums, bubba mustn’t cry! You’re going to have to get used to more people than Jade and your mama. Elizabeth, pay a mind to Nell when you speak—little pitchers have big ears, and this little pitcher is clever. What’s for lunch? Mushrooms on toast and then grilled spatchcock. Don’t pull faces, Nell! A day may come when you’ll think back on this menu with longing. Well do I remember when a hunk of stale bread and a bit of sweaty cheese tasted better than nectar and ambrosia.”

  ELIZABETH TOOK Alexander’s reprimand about her neglect of Anna so much to heart that she refused to leave her children to accompany him on trips to Sydney. He was an ardent fan of music, theater and opera, and, since he didn’t see why he should forgo these pleasures, he got into the habit of taking Ruby to Sydney instead. As 1878 turned into 1879, these visits became more frequent because, as he said,

  “New South Wales is now close enough to Great Britain to permit opera and theater companies the chance to perform here. There are coal-bunkering facilities for steamships on the way out, which cuts the passage to five weeks via Suez.”

  He and Ruby saw a fine performance of The Merchant of Venice, every opera that came to town, and a sparkling musical play called H.M.S. Pinafore by a relatively unknown pair of composers, Gilbert and Sullivan. They also went to see the Sydney International Exhibition, housed in a grand palace built for the occasion. The venue was harder to get to than of yore; Alexander had had to change his hotel. The old one was rendered uninhabitable by the new steam trams that roared along Elizabeth Street emitting choking black smoke and swirling showers of sparks.

  They were strolling through the exhibition palace, admiring the various pavilions, when Alexander spoke.

  “I’m going to England very shortly.�
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  Ruby stopped to look at him. “What provoked this?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes, always honestly.”

  “I’m tired of a house full of women. Soon we’ll be entering a new decade and the new century will be a mere twenty years away. I want to see what’s happening in England, Scotland and Germany—there are new furnaces for steeling iron, new ways to build bridges, methods of generating electricity that will turn it from a toy into a mighty force, and even rumors of new, quite revolutionary engines,” said Alexander, eyes alight. “Were it not for Anna, I’d take Nell and Elizabeth with me, put them in a good house in the West End of London, and use it as my base. But that can’t happen, and—honestly—I’m profoundly glad for it. I need a long respite from women, Ruby, even you.”

  “I understand completely.” She commenced to walk. “If it should be possible, will you visit Lee?”

  “Visiting Lee is the first item on my agenda. In fact, whenever he has school holidays, I intend to take him with me. It will be valuable experience for a budding engineer.”

  “Oh, Alexander, that’s wonderful! Thank you!”

  Now he stopped to look at her. “There’s a question I’ve never asked you, Ruby, I suppose because Lee left so soon after I met him, and you and I in those days were not—well, the rather bigamous couple we’ve become. What I want to know is how Lee can pose as a Chinese prince when his name is Costevan?”

  Her laughter was so spontaneous and attractive that the crowd in their vicinity turned to stare at them openly; naturally Alexander Kinross with a strikingly beautiful woman on his arm drew stares, but usually they were furtive, as gossip said this particular woman was not his wife.