by Judy Nunn
‘Tea?’ Jeanne asked.
‘Lovely. Thank you.’
‘A glorious day, is it not?’ Emily Laurie made polite conversation as Jeanne lifted a small silver bell on the table beside her. One sharp tinkle and seconds later a maid appeared.
‘It certainly is,’ Harry agreed.
While Jeanne ordered afternoon tea, Harry studied his surrounds.
‘Autumn can be quite the pleasantest time of year in Kalgoorlie, don’t you agree?’ The Englishwoman was studying Harry as he studied the room. An arrogant man, she decided. Convinced that his looks and his charm were enough. Vulgar too. She had noticed his concentration upon Jeanne’s hips as he followed her into the drawing room. Of course Jeanne never minded that sort of thing. Indeed she viewed it as flattering, Emily reflected with irritation. Probably because she was French. But Emily believed in social decorum. There was a time and a place for everything, and lewd glances did not belong in the drawing room over afternoon tea.
Having surveyed the room, Harry had once more turned his attention to Jeanne. It fascinated him to think that she had been Gaston’s mistress. Not that Gaston had told him so, of course—they were both gentlemen after all—but the inference had been there. ‘She was married to a dear friend of mine, alas now gone,’ he’d said. ‘We have been very close, Jeanne and I, and I am sure you will like her.’ That was all—certainly no admission that they had been lovers—but it was the manner in which he had said it. And here, in Jeanne’s house, Gaston’s influence was conspicuous. The fine lace curtains, elegant furnishings and Persian scatter rugs may well have been Jeanne Renoir, but the French-polished jarrah-panelled walls and the jarrah parquetry floors—a la Maison Picot—were pure Gaston.
‘Of course the autumn evenings can be chilly,’ Emily continued. Harry dragged his attention back to the Englishwoman. Her smile was as pleasant as it had been upon his arrival but did he detect the slightest edge to her voice? Well, he couldn’t blame her, he had been very rude in not paying more attention to her. It was difficult to pay attention to such a mousy little thing though. Especially when one was in the same room as Jeanne Renoir.
‘Indeed they can, Miss Laurie. Very chilly indeed.’ Harry turned on the charm. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people are of our Kalgoorlie weather, do you not find this so?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Emily was not the least bit taken in by his charm but, as the man was at least observing the social graces, her irritation abated. ‘They assume that it is hot and dry for three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. And yet the winter nights can be uncomfortably cold and…’
‘And the frosts…’ Harry nodded dutifully, ‘such terrible winter frosts.’ She really did look like a mouse, he thought, in that dour brown dress with its severe bolero jacket. He longed for Jeanne to enter the conversation so that he could legitimately turn his attention to her once more. He did so love observing beautiful women.
It was nothing more than observation of course. Harry had no thoughts of straying from Maudie. Maudie was no beauty by the accepted standards of the day but she was his Maudie and he loved her. And by God, he thought, last night when he’d held that big woman’s body to him, when he’d run his fingers through that thick brown hair which was Maudie’s pride … by God, last night she’d been beautiful.
Having arranged tea and scones and biscuits and having given the maid some further orders for the afternoon, Jeanne joined in the conversation, which remained frustratingly fixed upon the weather for some unknown reason.
In the middle of a discussion on the occasional cyclones that hit the goldfields, the maid arrived and Harry seized the opportunity. ‘Shall we get down to business, Jeanne?’
Emily nodded for the maid to retire and busied herself with the teapot while Jeanne listened to each of Harry’s queries. Her answers were simple. The rentals of Gaston’s properties were collected weekly by a Mr Donald McAllister and delivered to her house where she and Emily kept the books.
‘It is Emily who does the adding up, I am not very good at… um …?’ She looked questioningly in Emily’s direction.
‘Arithmetic,’ Emily answered.
‘Oui. Arithmetic.’ She smiled charmingly. Everything was very easy, she said. Emily did the banking on Mondays and the bank forwarded monthly statements of the deposits to Gaston.
‘I do not know why he needs another partner,’ Jeanne said without rancour and then she smiled mischievously, ‘except that perhaps he does not trust a woman.’
Emily looked up from her tea. ‘He is acquiring more property, Jeanne, it is perfectly understandable.’
‘Yes of course.’ Jeanne shrugged disinterestedly and changed the subject. She admired the fabric of Harry’s suit. ‘Such a fine weave,’ she exclaimed.
The conversation continued in a vacuous vein and Harry was becoming more and more frustrated. When the maid arrived to clear away the tea things he decided to take matters into his own hands.
‘I would like to see the properties, Jeanne. Do you wish to accompany me? My trap is outside.’
Jeanne and Emily exchanged a look and Emily nodded.
‘Of course, if you wish,’ Jeanne replied and she fetched her pink parasol and her pink silk hat trimmed with ostrich feathers.
At the door, having declined to join them, Emily nodded a pleasant goodbye. ‘We will be seeing quite a bit of each other, Mr Brearley. I look forward to a very pleasant working relationship.’
‘I, too, Miss Laurie.’ He nodded and flashed his gleaming new teeth at the mouse. ‘Good afternoon.’
They travelled two blocks down Hannan Street, then Jeanne directed him to the right. ‘Are you sure you wish to inspect the properties so early in the day?’ she asked.
Harry was a little bewildered. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon. ‘Why not?’ he enquired.
But Jeanne merely shrugged in reply. ‘To the left,’ she instructed as they reached Hay Street.
As soon as they rounded the corner, she announced, ‘We are here.’ And Harry reined Black Bess to a standstill. Directly outside Red Ruby’s.
‘But these are …’ He didn’t know quite how to put it as he looked, bewildered, up and down Hay Street at the dozen or so brothels on either side of the road.
‘Brothels. Yes. Gaston owns three, but he intends to purchase more. “Jeanne,” he says to me, “a good whorehouse is where the true gold is in a goldmining town.” Gaston believes that one can always rely upon men’s desire for pleasure. “To drown their sorrows,” he says to me, “or to celebrate. Either way.” That is what he says. And of course he is right.’
There was no one in the street—as there rarely was at that time of day—but Jeanne was nevertheless leaning back in the trap so as not to be easily observed.
‘I seldom visit the properties, and never in the day, but if you wish to inspect them now I will wait for you,’ she said.
‘No! No!’ Harry flicked the reins urgently. Good God, he thought, what if someone saw him? ‘Trot on, Bess, trot on.’
Jeanne clutched her hat, threw back her beautiful head and laughed with delight. ‘He did not tell you! I had a feeling that was so.’ She glanced saucily at him. ‘Oh Harry, mon cher, your face. Just look at your face!’ And she was still laughing when they pulled up outside her house in Hannan Street.
Paul Dunleavy walked energetically along Commonwealth Avenue towards Copley Square. He’d recently returned home to Boston from his annual holiday abroad and was feeling not only well rested, but vital, strong and proud of the fact that, at thirty-six years of age, he could ski the top slopes with the vigour of a twenty-year-old. He lifted the collar of his camelhair coat and tucked his lamb’s wool scarf more snugly inside. It was a bitter-cold February and the air was biting.
The morning’s busy traffic had churned the snow in the streets to a brown sludge but, as Paul rounded the corner, Copley Square was a winter delight. The paths which crisscrossed the tiny central park had been swept clean by a dawn patrol of
council workmen but, elsewhere, virgin snow blanketed the ground. The elm trees’ winter skeletons were gracefully clothed in white, as were the park benches which had yet to be braved by those willing to defy the elements. At lunch time, encouraged by a glimmer of sun, women with children and men with newspapers and packed sandwiches would vie for the benches.
To the right, stretching the whole length of the square, was Boston’s pride and joy, the Public Library, an elegant two-storey building in grey marble. To the left was the old Trinity Church, its saints, ornately carved in sandstone, timelessly watching the daily cavalcade.
Digging his gloved hands deep into his coat pockets, Paul strode briskly across the square and around the corner to the Copley Square Hotel, each breath a puff of white steam in the icy air. It hadn’t been as cold as this in Austria, he thought.
Paul’s friends, who were also wealthy and who also holidayed abroad every year, always questioned his choice of location. ‘You’re mad,’ Geoffrey would say, ‘you can ski here the whole winter long—why in God’s name go to the Alps? Why not Capri, or Tahiti? Or at least Acapulco. Get away from the cold.’
But Paul loved the cold. And he loved the European Alps. Particularly the little Austrian village of Steinach close to the Italian border. He’d been going to the remote chalet near Steinach for fifteen years now, ever since his student days, and it had not changed in all that time. Being there made him feel young and each year he returned from his holiday rejuvenated.
Earlier in their marriage, his wife, Elizabeth, who yearned to escape the winter, had once or twice rebelled and holidayed with a female friend in Majorca instead. But when their daughter Meg joined forces with her father, Elizabeth reluctantly gave in to the weight of opposition. These days, she wasn’t sure if fourteen-year-old Meg genuinely loved the Alps or whether it was the hero-worship of her father which made her think she did. But, either way, being a good wife and mother, Elizabeth resigned herself to the annual Austrian sojourn.
The doorman at the Copley Square Hotel tipped his hat. ‘Morning, Mr Dunleavy, sir.’
‘Morning, Albert.’
Paul walked through to the parlour. He had adopted the hotel as a meeting place for the more casual of his business appointments. It gave him a reason to escape the office and was a good half-hour walk away. That was the only problem with consultancy, he thought, it might pay a great deal more than field work but it was, on the whole, a sedentary existence.
As he settled into one of the comfortable armchairs and signalled the waiter for coffee, he looked at his watch. Ten minutes early for his meeting. He was too unsettled to read the newspaper—his mind would only wander as it had for the past week since he’d returned from abroad. Before the end of the year he’d be taking off again. But not for a holiday this time. The journey would be arduous, and the job awaiting him at the other end even more so. Just as well he was feeling fit and strong.
The coffee arrived. He removed his gloves. Damn it, he really didn’t want to go. Particularly without Elizabeth and Meg. He’d be gone for a whole year! He would miss them. The older he grew, the more he disliked being away from his family. Still, he had a duty and he must resign himself to it.
Duty. Paul smiled to himself. His father’s favourite word. ‘You have a duty, Paul. A duty to this family.’ Paul could hear him now. ‘A duty you should be proud to fulfil.’ His father had fulfilled with pride his own duties as the eldest son of one of Boston’s oldest families and he was determined to instil in his only son a pride of equal fervour.
Quenton Dunleavy, a staunch Unitarian, had gloried in the fact that his own father had been one of the founding members of the American Unitarian Association. ‘Along with the likes of Emerson and Everett,’ he would boast. ‘And Lowell and Holmes. Your grandfather knew them all and they knew him. Liberal thinkers!’ And he’d pound the table with his fist to emphasise the point. ‘Liberal thinkers who played their part in the flowering of New England. And your grandfather was one of them!’ Quenton Dunleavy was more than a bore, he was a tyrant. And the older he grew the more obsessive his familial pride became.
Despite the brainwashing, Paul finally recognised upon leaving university that his father was anything but the liberal thinker he boasted to be. The man was obdurate, implacable and utterly incapable of moving with the times. It wasn’t his fault, Paul supposed, Grandfather Dunleavy had probably been a similar style of tyrant. But years later when Meg was born, Paul determined he would not make the same mistake. He would be a modern father. He would stay young and approachable and understanding, for his daughter’s sake.
Paul carefully dropped one sugar cube into his cup and returned the tongs to the sugar bowl. Of course it wasn’t always easy, he thought as he stirred his coffee. Meg was already rebelling against her mother, but that was natural. Meg had a fine academic brain. She had more to offer than the average young woman of old Bostonian stock, cultivated by the family to marry young, become a supportive wife, a perfect hostess and, above all, an expert in the social graces. Paul’s wife Elizabeth fulfilled each of these prerequisites perfectly. It had been why he’d married her. But it was not necessary for Meg to do the same. Not these days. Good God, he thought with grudging admiration, the girl was even threatening to join the suffragettes. Paul didn’t approve of the suffragette movement; he believed it could get a little out of hand, women not truly understanding politics the way men did—but he was proud that Meg wished to voice her political beliefs. It was a sign of strength and intelligence. And at this stage, of course, there was nothing to fear, she was far too young.
She certainly had guts, he thought fondly. Why, only this morning at breakfast she had said she wanted to come with him at the end of the year.
‘I’ll be nearly fifteen by then, Daddy,’ she’d said, as if that made all the difference.
‘Australia!’ he’d scoffed at first, thinking it was just a childish whim. ‘And what exactly do you think you’d do in Australia?’
‘I’d join the movement,’ she’d answered as they sat in the breakfast room and the maid poured the coffee. ‘The Australian suffragette movement leads the world. Second to the New Zealand suffragettes that is,’ she added, helping herself to another flapjack. ‘I wonder why they’re so advanced in the southern hemisphere. Maybe it has something to do with the heat.’
‘You’re too young—they wouldn’t accept you,’ Paul smiled, admiring her pluck.
‘I may be too young to work in the political arena, Daddy,’ she corrected him, ‘but I’m certainly not too young to work behind the scenes. And that’s what they need. Hard workers!’
Paul’s wife, Elizabeth, said nothing. She sat sipping her coffee and watching the father-daughter antics benignly.
Elizabeth knew that Meg was showing off for her father and he was loving it, as usual. There was no rancour in Elizabeth as she watched, she delighted in the love they shared, but there was a tiny nagging fear. She hoped one day that the games they played would not backfire on them. Meg was not a natural rebel, it was a role she’d adopted to impress the father she idolised. If there was a true rebel in the family, it was Elizabeth herself. How she would love to flaunt her upbringing and the constraints of society—how she would love to join the suffragette movement. She thought it was high time women were given a voice. But of course she could never espouse the cause; it would destroy her family if she did. Paul would be incapable of tolerating such an outrage—for all his insistence on being a modern father, Paul was, in his own way, as old-fashioned as Quenton Dunleavy had been. The only reason he encouraged boldness and independence in Meg was because she was the son he wished he’d had. Elizabeth worried just a little. It could be dangerous to imbue the girl with a grit and fervour she did not possess.
‘You’re not coming to Australia and that’s that,’ Paul said good-naturedly as he rose from the table. ‘You must finish your schooling before you think of aligning yourself to anything at all, let alone the suffragette movement.’
‘I believe the schools in Australia are very good,’ Meg countered, although she had no idea whether they were or not. ‘I could finish my schooling there while I work for the movement.’
Paul looked at his watch. He would be late if he didn’t leave immediately.
‘I think we’re all forgetting one little thing.’ Elizabeth gently dabbed her lips with her linen napkin. ‘I doubt very much whether there would be a suffragette movement in Kalgoorlie.’ The others stared blankly at her for a second. ‘You may clear, Edith,’ she said to the maid and she laughed as she rose from the table. ‘It has such a bizarre ring to it, does it not? Kalgoorlie. A pretty word. I like it.’ She kissed her husband on the cheek. ‘You must not be late, my dear.’
Meg felt irritated. Her mother was trivialising the conversation. And as always, Paul felt a wealth of affection and admiration for his wife. What a witty woman she was and her timing, as usual, was impeccable. ‘Goodbye, Elizabeth,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll not be late.’
‘Paul!’ A newspaper landed on the table beside Paul’s coffee cup, closely followed by a bulky, beribboned folder. ‘Sorry I’m a little late, old boy.’ Godfrey Brigstock plopped into the armchair beside him. ‘Slept in.’ Godfrey had arrived from London the preceding day. ‘Devilishly tiring all that travelling.’ He signalled the waiter for coffee.
Godfrey and Paul had met in South Africa ten years previously. Both of them had been young married men at the time and highly qualified mining engineers, Godfrey a graduate of Oxford University and Paul a graduate of Harvard. Both had been extremely ambitious but Paul’s ambitions had been a little more purist than Godfrey’s. Paul wanted to be the most respected in his field. Godfrey wanted to be the richest.
‘Consultancy, that’s where the money is,’ he’d said to Paul. ‘Ten times less work, ten times more money. It’s where I’m aiming, old man, and you’re mad if you don’t too. We could become partners.’
They hadn’t become partners, Paul had continued to work in the field for a good five years before following Godfrey into consultancy. These days their respective firms worked in partnership and the rewards were lucrative.
