The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

  So when her courses appeared, Anna screeched in terror, had to be held down while she was fitted with a towel. And no amount of time or repetition managed to lessen her terror. The only way that Jade and Elizabeth could get Anna through those five days of bleeding was to sedate her heavily with chloral hydrate and, if that didn’t work, with laudanum.

  If all of Anna’s life had been a torment, that was as nothing compared to the ravages her menarche wrought on her, for there was just no way anyone could explain to her that the bleeding was normal and natural, that it would get itself over, that all she had to do was accept its monthly recurrence. Anna couldn’t accept it because of the horror it inspired in her and the shortness of her attention span. Nor was she regular, which meant she couldn’t be prepared for each episode ahead of time.

  Between her periods she was quite happy unless she saw blood, when she would scream and blunder about in a panic. If the blood were her own, titanic struggles took place.

  Finally, after a year that saw eight periods, Anna had taken in enough about her courses to start fighting the moment someone tried to undress her—she equated being undressed with bleeding. Which led to one benefit; Anna suddenly learned to undress herself, and to wash herself. Once Elizabeth and Jade were satisfied that her ablutions were adequate, they left her alone in that one respect.

  “Perhaps her courses are a blessing,” said Elizabeth to Nell. “I didn’t think we’d ever teach her to wash and change.”

  OF COURSE the maturation of both her daughters made Elizabeth feel very old; a curious sensation given her actual youth. But here she was at thirty years of age with two budding young women on her hands, and no real idea of how to handle either of them. If she had known more, had wider experience, they would have helped overcome the difficulties; as it was, she had to fumble along as best she could and resort to Ruby when necessary. Not that Ruby was able to help her with Anna; no one could help with Anna save Jade, loving and patient, unflagging in her devotion.

  Fourteen years into her marriage in March of 1889, Elizabeth had taught herself not to feel, and thereby attained a measure of content. In many ways, she reasoned, the life she led so far from home was not unlike the one she would have led caring for her father and then as maiden aunt to nieces and nephews; though a vital necessity, she was not the center of anyone’s existence. Nor did she wish to be the center of anyone’s existence. Alexander had Ruby and Nell, Nell had Alexander, and Anna had Jade. The years were flying, and nothing changed between her and Alexander. As long as he didn’t touch her, she could keep up the façade for the sake of her one observant child, Nell.

  Oh, there were nice moments! A laugh shared with Nell over Chang the cook; some point on which she and Alexander were in complete agreement; delightful chats with Ruby; Constance’s visits to ease the loneliness of her widowhood; riding into the wonderland of the bush; some book that held her enthralled; a duet with Nell on the piano; privacy when she wanted it, which was often. And if she thought of The Pool, if the image of Lee at The Pool still haunted her, at least it had lost its sharp edges as time mellowed it, smearing the golden haze of the sun and his skin together with the inexorable thumb of an unrepeated memory. Time had even permitted her to return to The Pool, to enjoy it without really dwelling upon Lee.

  TO ALEXANDER, his house had suddenly become cloyingly feminine, for though he nobly continued to take Nell with him on his rounds whenever she wasn’t in the schoolroom, he had to admit to himself that it wasn’t quite the same as it used to be. Not her fault, but his—and Elizabeth’s fault too, with her oft-reiterated remarks about Nell’s being a young woman now, and the target of men. So try as he would, he found himself checking his employees to make sure they weren’t gazing at Nell in lust, or—worse, as Elizabeth kept saying—dangling after her with a mind on how much money she was worth. Common sense said that Nell was not a femme fatale nor was likely to turn into one, but the possessive father in him was sufficiently shaken to, for instance, suddenly decree that Nell might not go off alone with Summers, or with any other man of mine or workshops. He even visited the schoolroom to ascertain what the relationships were there—that was when he apostrophised himself a fool! Nell was obviously no more and no less than one of the boys. The three white Kinross girls who had begun with her had departed when they and Nell had turned ten, for reasons that varied from boarding school in Sydney to being needed at home.

  It was Anna’s maturation tipped the scales, made him yearn to flee. Even Ruby couldn’t impart enough sanity to his life while he was tied to Kinross. Getting away was more difficult than of yore, thanks to Charles Dewy’s death and Sung’s slow slide into purely Chinese matters. Yet what had once been a gold mine was now an empire requiring his personal attention all over the world; Apocalypse Enterprises had expanded into industries and areas far removed from the mining of gold. It had interests in other minerals from silver-lead-zinc to copper, aluminum, nickel, manganese and trace elements; interests in sugar, wheat, cattle and sheep; factories that made steam engines, locomotives, rolling stock and agricultural machinery. There were tea plantations and a gold mine in Ceylon, coffee plantations in Central and South America, an emerald mine in Brazil, and shares in half a hundred thriving industries in the U.S.A., England, Scotland and Germany. Since the company was still privately owned, no one save its board of directors knew quite what Apocalypse Enterprises was worth. Even the Bank of England had to hazard a guess.

  Having realized that he had an unerring eye for antiquities and art, Alexander had gotten into the habit of combining business trips abroad with the acquisition of paintings, sculpture, objets d’art, furniture and rare books. The two icons he had given to Sir Edward Wyler had been replaced and added to; the Giotto had been joined by two Titians, a Rubens and a Botticelli before he fell in love with the nonrepresentational works of modern painters based in Paris, and bought Matisse, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Suerat; he had a Velásquez and two Goyas, a Van Dyke, a Hals, a Vermeer and a Bruegel. The guides at Pompeii would sell a priceless Roman mosaic floor for five gold sovereigns; in fact, the guides anywhere would sell anything for a few pieces of gold. Instead of putting them in Kinross House, Alexander occupied himself for a few short months in building an annex on to the house where all but a few favorite works hung or stood or loomed inside glass cases. It was an interest, something to alleviate his boredom.

  Travel was another, yet he was tied to Kinross. In one part of Alexander’s mind he was still following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, curious to see everything the world had to offer. And now he was stuck in a house redolent with the sounds and smells of women. Never more so than after Anna joined the feminine club with a cacophony of shrieks and screams.

  “Pack your trunks!” he barked at Ruby in June of 1889.

  “What?” she asked blankly.

  “Pack your trunks! You and I are going abroad.”

  “Alexander, I’d love to, but how can I? Or you, for that matter? There’d be no one to look after things.”

  “There will be in a few days,” said Alexander. “Lee’s coming home. He docks in Sydney in a week.”

  “Then I’m not going anywhere,” said Ruby, looking mutinous.

  “Oh, you’ll see him!” Alexander snapped. “We’ll meet him in Sydney, you can have your reunion, then we’re off to America.”

  “Take Elizabeth.”

  “I’m damned if I will! I want to enjoy myself, Ruby.”

  The green eyes regarded him with something bordering on dislike. “You know, Alexander, you’re growing very preoccupied with yourself,” said Ruby. “Not to mention arrogant. I’m not your lackey yet, good sir, so don’t growl at me to pack my trunks just because you’re fed up with Kinross! I’m not. I want to be here if my son is coming home.”

  “You’ll see him in Sydney.”

  “For five minutes, if you have anything to do with it.”

  “For five days, if you like.”

  “For five years, I woul
d like! You seem to forget, my friend, that I’ve hardly seen my son in donkey’s years. If he really is coming home, then home is the only place I want to be.”

  No mistaking the iron in her voice; Alexander abandoned his imperiousness and managed to look both contrite and beguiling. “Please, Ruby, don’t desert me!” he begged. “We won’t be away forever, just for long enough to shake the cobwebs out of my mind and off my shoes. Please, come with me! Then I promise you and I will come home and home you can stay.”

  She softened. “Well…”

  “Good girl! We’ll spend as long as you like in Sydney with Lee before we sail—anything, Ruby, as long as I’m out of here and with you! I’ve never taken you abroad—wouldn’t you love to see the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, the pyramids and the Parthenon? With Lee here, we’ll be free. Who knows what the future holds? This might be our last chance, my dearest darling! Say yes!”

  “If I have time in Sydney with Lee, yes,” said Ruby.

  He kissed her hands, her neck, her lips, her hair. “You can have anything you want as long as we’re out of Kinross and I’m out of Elizabeth’s clutches. Since the girls have grown up, she’s done nothing but nag, nag, nag.”

  “I know. She has a bit with me, even,” Ruby agreed. “If she could, I think she’d put Nell and Anna into a convent.” She made a small purr of pleasure. “Oh, she’ll get over being so clucky, it’s just a passing thing, but it might be nice not to be one of her targets.”

  WHEN ELIZABETH heard an expurgated version of this from Ruby the following day, she looked aghast.

  “Oh, Ruby, surely I’m not that bad!” she protested.

  “Very nearly, and it’s not like you,” said Ruby. “Truly, Elizabeth, you have to get over this obsession with protecting the virtue of your girls. The last eighteen months have been a hard time of it. I know it isn’t every mother has two girls turn into young women so quickly, but they’re perfectly safe in this town, I can assure you. If Nell were a flibbertigibbet you might have some cause, but she’s absolutely level-headed and not a scrap in love with love. As for Anna—Anna’s a grown-up child! Your constant carping has driven Alexander away, including from Nell. Who won’t thank you if she finds out why he’s in such a lather to leave.”

  “But the Company!” Elizabeth cried.

  “The Company will manage,” said Ruby, suddenly reluctant to impart the news that Lee was coming home.

  “And you’re really going with Alexander?” Elizabeth asked, sounding wistful.

  Ruby gasped. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous!”

  “No, no, of course I’m not jealous! I just wondered what it would be like to travel with someone I adored.”

  “One day,” said Ruby, kissing Elizabeth on the cheek, “I do so much hope that you find out.”

  IT WAS A VERY chastened Elizabeth who farewelled Alexander and Ruby at the train station. She has gone back into her shell, thought Ruby sadly, and isn’t it an indictment of Alexander and me that her only venture into the world of reality has been due to concern over her girls? The worst part is that it’s misplaced—neither of her girls is in need of her concern.

  “Did you tell Elizabeth that Lee’s coming home?” Ruby asked Alexander as the train drew out.

  “No, I assumed that you had,” he said, surprised.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  Ruby shrugged. “If I knew that, I’d be one of those newfangled clairvoyants. Besides, what does it matter? Elizabeth takes absolutely no interest in the Company—or in Lee.”

  “That upsets you, doesn’t it?”

  “Bloody oath it does! How can anyone not like my darling jade kitten?”

  “Since I happen to like him very much, I honestly don’t know.”

  WITH ALEXANDER gone, Nell immersed herself in her books, determined now to matriculate at the end of next year and go up to university at the very early age of fifteen. An ambition that appalled her mother, who opposed it adamantly. To be told that it was really none of her business.

  “If you want someone to pick on,” Nell flared, “then pick on Anna! In case you hadn’t realized it, Anna’s getting very naughty lately—give her half a chance and she’s off.”

  As this was a legitimate criticism, Elizabeth bit her tongue and sought Jade to see what could be done to discipline Anna.

  “Nothing, Miss Lizzy,” said Jade gloomily. “My baby Anna is not a baby anymore, she doesn’t want to be kept to the house. I try to go with her, but she’s so—so cunning!”

  Who ever would have thought it? wondered Elizabeth. Anna had become curiously independent, as if learning to wash and dress had sprung some secret door in her mind that, once opened, told her that she was able to look after herself. Between her courses she was a happy child, and not difficult to amuse; give her a jigsaw puzzle or some building blocks and she would play with them for hours on end. But once she turned twelve, which she did that year Alexander took Ruby away, she began a game of eluding her keepers, scampering off into the garden and hiding. Only her inability to keep her glee to herself—she chuckled very loudly—enabled Jade or Elizabeth to find her.

  Elizabeth, however, was smarting from Ruby’s judgment that she was over-protective, compounded when Alexander also gave her a piece of his mind just before he left.

  “All she does is go into the garden, Elizabeth, so leave her alone, let up on her a little!”

  “Unless she’s curbed, she’ll wander farther afield.”

  “When she does is time to act” was Alexander’s verdict.

  Now, three weeks after Alexander and Ruby had departed, Anna had been found down at the poppet heads just as the noon shift was changing. Recognizing her because Elizabeth still took her to church on Sundays, the miners kindly yet firmly turned her over to Summers, who brought her up to the house.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her, Mr. Summers,” Elizabeth said, wondering if a hard slap would do any good. “We try to keep a constant eye on her, but all we have to do is turn our backs for an instant, and she’s off somewhere.”

  “I’ll spread the word, Lady Kinross,” Jim Summers said, hiding his exasperation; his time was precious, he had better things to do than police Anna. “If anyone sees her wandering, they’re to bring her to me or to you here at the house. Will that do?”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” said Elizabeth, relinquishing the slap-for-punishment alternative as worse than useless.

  And so it had to be left. With both Alexander and Ruby away, Summers was the man in authority.

  BUT NOT FOR long. Elizabeth was marching an unrepentant and giggling Anna back to the house when Lee walked around the hedge from the cable car landing. She stopped in her tracks, staring as if mesmerized. Anna emitted a squeal and slipped from Elizabeth’s slackened grasp.

  “Lee! Lee!” the girl called, running to him.

  The scene looked a little like a man trying to restrain a gangling hound-sized puppy, thought Elizabeth, gladder to see Lee than she had ever thought possible. She moved across the grass, a smile plastered to her mouth.

  “Down, Anna, down!” she said, achieving a laugh.

  “It is a bit that way, isn’t it?” Lee asked, laughing too.

  Jade appeared to take custody of Anna, who was reluctant to go at first, then submitted to the inevitable in her sunny way.

  The youth was definitely a man now—he must have turned twenty-five a month ago. Though he had that smooth Chinese skin that resists ageing, there was a small sharp crease on either side of his fine mouth that hadn’t been there when last she saw him in England, and his eyes seemed wiser, sadder.

  “Dr. Costevan, I presume?” she asked, holding out a hand.

  “Lady Kinross,” he said, taking it and kissing it.

  That she hadn’t expected, didn’t quite know how to react; she removed it from his clasp as casually as she could and began to walk toward the house with him.

  “I take it that was Anna?” he asked.

&nbs
p; “Yes, that was my problem child.”

  “Problem child?”

  “She runs away every chance she gets.”

  “I see. That must be very worrying for you.”

  Someone on her side! Elizabeth stopped to look at him, then wished she hadn’t; she had forgotten what looking directly into those extraordinary eyes was like. Rather winded, she took an audible gulp of air before replying. “Jade and I are beside ourselves,” she said. “It wasn’t too bad when all she did was hide in the garden, but recently she had to be returned from the poppet heads. I suppose next it will be Kinross town.”

  “And you can’t have that, I agree. Are you short of Wong sisters, is that it?”

  “Jasmine and Peach Blossom have gone with your mother, but I have Jade, Pearl and Silken Flower as well as Butterfly Wing. It sounds a lot, but the trouble is that Anna knows them all so well. What I need is someone she won’t take any notice of. Jade suggested the youngest Wong, Peony, but I can’t ask a twenty-two-year-old to take responsibility for Anna.”

  “Leave it to me, then. I’ll ask my father for a woman Anna doesn’t know and who won’t fall for her tricks. Unless Anna has changed since England, once she gets used to having what seems a block of wood in her vicinity, she’ll behave as if she were alone,” said Lee, holding the door open.

  “Oh, Lee, I would be so grateful!”

  “Think nothing of it,” he said, and turned to go.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Elizabeth asked, dismayed.

  “I don’t think so. You have no chaperone.”

  “Oh, really!” Elizabeth cried, color flooding into her face. “Considering what my husband and your mother are up to at this moment, that’s ridiculous! Come in, sit down with me and have a cup of tea, for pity’s sake!”

  His head went to one side as he regarded her through half-closed eyelids, then Ruby’s dimples popped out in either cheek and he laughed. “Just this once, then.”