Jones removed the soup bowls.
‘Mr Gaulish will now turn to the lady on his left. You will look at your … ah, your pickled salmon, thank you, Jones … but be ready for the slightest movement to your right. When the gentleman looks at you preparing to speak you must instantly turn your attention to him.’
‘What if he doesn’t turn?’
‘He may, indeed, be so fascinated by his other companion that he breaks the rules and keeps talking to her. You keep on eating neatly, tiny bites so that you may appear intent on the food. Never let your plate sit there empty — you need something to focus on if conversation flags.’
‘What if Mr Gaulish keeps talking to me during the next course?’
‘You keep addressing him. But even Mr Gaulish must pause to take a mouthful, and your other dining companion may take that opportunity to speak to you. You can then turn to him, with a regretful but small smile at Mr Gaulish.’
‘It sounds extremely boring,’ said Sophie frankly.
‘It is. You must keep to the convention that young ladies know nothing except drawing, music and a modicum of French.’
‘How do people stand it?’
Miss Lily laughed. ‘The men are flattered. The girls know that once they are married they can lead their own lives — dependent on their husband’s, but if you have chosen your husband wisely, it can be a full life indeed.’
‘You mean as a mother?’
‘No. I am talking of political hostesses — women who have made or broken prime ministers just by the choice of guests at their table, the passing on of gossip at afternoon tea. I mean women who use their influence to campaign for whatever cause touches them most.’
‘But women can’t choose a husband. They can only say yes or no.’
‘A woman of sufficient charm can attract the husband she prefers. A woman of sufficient sense can attract a husband who will give her the life she wants. Which I suspect is exactly what you did, my dear.’ Miss Lily placed her knife and fork together. ‘Of course it helps if a girl knows exactly what life she wants before she acquires that husband.’
Sophie stayed silent. Miss Lily smiled. ‘You haven’t thought what your life will be like beyond the clothes you will change into after your wedding breakfast?’
Sophie flushed. ‘How did you know I’d thought about my wedding?’
‘Every girl imagines herself a bride at some time. Do you like children, Miss Higgs?’
‘I … I suppose so.’ She thought of the girls at the factory. ‘I like them when they are older. Not very young children, I think.’
‘Why?’
Sophie shrugged, then stopped as Miss Lily raised her eyebrow. Shrugs, it appeared, were ill bred, or at least not for debutantes. ‘Babies are messy and they can’t talk much.’
‘Sufficient reason.’
‘You mean I won’t enjoy being a mother?’
Once again her hostess gazed at her, evaluating. ‘No, I suspect you will.’ At last Miss Lily gave a strange smile, almost as if it were made of regret and a dawning hope. ‘Children do grow, and a nursemaid is employed for the more boring times. Often the choice of husband determines the degree of joy in your children. But to have only a life of motherhood, tennis parties, fashionable clothes …’
Her hostess, if she was not mistaken, was goading her. ‘What else is there? You said that my life will be … limited … when I go home.’
‘Colonial life is always limited, Miss Higgs. Australia and your father’s New Zealand are far from the centre of the world.’ Miss Lily nodded to Jones to serve her more potatoes. ‘Perhaps, after a little more time here, you will decide you wish to stay in England.’
Sophie stared at her. How could Miss Lily so carelessly dismiss Australia, New Zealand, the rest of the world? ‘If there is a drought in Australia, England will not get her corned beef, or wheat — nor will your cousin receive his income from my father’s factories.’
Her hostess looked puzzled. ‘I don’t quite understand your point.’
‘Australia matters! You think England matters more because you are part of it. Australians invented refrigeration — could England even be fed without cool rooms on ships? Moonbeam Joe can tell you if it’s going to rain next year, or if a bushfire will race over the hill. He’ll never need to learn how to hold his soupspoon. But he matters.’ She lifted her chin. ‘My father matters more than some … some duke who doesn’t even manage his own estate.’
‘I am glad you didn’t say “earl”,’ said Miss Lily dryly.
Sophie flushed. She nearly had.
Miss Lily regarded her in silence. Finally she said, ‘You have misunderstood me. Or, more likely, the fault is mine. I did not wish to imply that individuals in England matter more than those in Australia. Your father is indeed extraordinary, and Moonbeam Joe sounds as if he is too, in a different way. Both are possibly more interesting than all those you will find in English drawing rooms next year. But you have missed the point. Your father supplies meat to England. With no markets, your father’s fortune would be small. And if the English government says, “Tomorrow we go to war”, every country in the Empire will follow.’
Sophie said nothing. Miss Lily smiled. ‘I had not expected these months to be an education for me too. Yes, refrigeration has changed the world, and stainless steel may too, and neither was previously part of the way I saw the world. But who is Moonbeam Joe?’
‘A stockman.’ Sophie considered. ‘Theoretically. He doesn’t give opinions much, but when he does, everyone listens, even Dad. He’s Aboriginal,’ she explained. ‘He should be manager, but Dad says that the whites wouldn’t take him seriously. Dad’s probably correct.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve probably spent almost as much time with him as with Miss Thwaites or Dad. One of my treats when I was small was to be allowed to go to his place for Johnny cakes and golden syrup. His wife, Bill, made the best Johnny cakes …’
Miss Lily choked slightly, and dabbed her lips with her napkin. ‘Bill?’
Sophie laughed. ‘Yes, really, “Bill”. Not short for Wilhelmina. Bill used to be a drover’s boy. Women can’t go droving, of course, but Aboriginal women sometimes go as men. Everyone knows, and everyone carefully never notices. Bill didn’t go droving once she married Joe and had children, of course, but she still wore trousers and boots, except when she went to church on Sundays.’
‘She sounds … extraordinary.’
‘She was. She died while we were in Sydney, earlier this year. Some sort of fever.’
‘You liked her.’
‘I loved her,’ said Sophie frankly. ‘And Moonbeam Joe. He can whistle a lyrebird out to dance. They … they loved me too. My father loves me, but I’m the only child he has to love. Miss Thwaites too. But Bill and Joe had six sons and two daughters, and loved me anyway.’
Miss Lily looked at her strangely. ‘I think you are extremely easy to love, Miss Higgs. It is only the sheer size of your father’s fortune that has made you feel insignificant beside it. Thank you, Jones, no more potatoes,’ she added. She gazed at Sophie. ‘I still believe a girl of your intelligence and energy will find more fulfilment in England. I am even beginning to suspect that the marriage you will find the most fulfilling is one far beyond what you expect. But perhaps one day I should visit Australia too.’
‘You would love it,’ said Sophie eagerly. ‘Green is glorious, of course, but when you look at gold hills it’s as if you can see the bones of the country, not just its clothes. You could stay at Thuringa …’ She stopped, suddenly wondering if the property of a corned-beef king was suitable accommodation for the cousin of an earl.
‘I would like to visit,’ said Miss Lily, her voice rich with unmistakable sincerity. ‘Perhaps I even will.’ She paused, carefully adjusting her knife and fork, then added slightly too casually, ‘I forgot to tell you. I believe the earl has decided to come home for Christmas.’
Jones muffled an exclamation. Sophie glanced up at him, and then at Miss Lily. So Jones had not known that h
is master was returning. Surely he and Mrs Goodenough should have been told so the household could begin preparations?
How long had it been since the Earl of Shillings was home? And why come now?
Did the earl need her fortune? Was that the true reason why she had been invited here, to be made acceptable and encouraged to want a home in England?
Of course not. She was thinking herself the centre of the universe, just what she had attacked the entire English aristocracy for doing a few minutes ago. If the Earl of Shillings wished for a wealthy wife, there were a hundred eligible American heiresses he could have chosen before now.
‘Do you have carol singers in Australia, Miss Higgs?’ enquired Miss Lily.
Christmas began with the carol singers — children from the estate who sang in the hall for sixpences and hot spiced apple juice and mince pies and no apparent audience. Miss Lily listened from her drawing room, Sophie from upstairs, the servants presumably at doorways. The singers didn’t seem to find it strange; they were happy with the punch, the mince pies and the fruitcake handed out by Jones and the footmen after the performance, and with a white banknote placed smoothly in the collection hat by Jones.
The earl was to arrive late on Christmas Eve — too late for dinner, or, Sophie expected, the usual line-up of the entire staff to welcome him. Possibly the man who had left his privileged position in England had no wish for such formalities.
Excitement sizzled. Three months ago it would have been for his title. Now she wondered if the earl was, just possibly, as fascinating as his cousin. He was old, of course, forty-six, but any man who had spent so long in the mysterious East must have had extraordinary experiences. The earl might also let slip exactly who the woman known as ‘Miss Lily’ was. But there was little Sophie could do to express her excitement, beyond wiring Miss Thwaites for another Christmas gift from Australia. Even her Christmas Day clothes and hairstyle would be chosen by Miss Lily, arranged by Doris, while Sophie sat and allowed herself to be prepared.
On Christmas Eve Miss Lily and Sophie delivered Christmas gifts to each cottage — or rather two footmen carried in the packages, while Sophie and Miss Lily waited in the carriage, dressed in fur-trimmed hooded cloaks and muffs to keep out the wind. Miss Lily was more silent than usual, almost nervous. Sophie wondered if she feared the earl might find fault with her care of his estate.
Every bundle had been carefully selected as appropriate for each family: beef and a ham for the labourers, with one of the puddings made at the Hall, so many that the scullery ceiling had been hidden by dangling brown cloth balls for the past month. Tenant farmers received a goose, port, a wooden box of crystallised fruit, and rhubarb from the earl’s forcing houses, the greenhouses behind the Hall where fruit and flowers were grown out of season. Mr Manning, the earl’s agent, received a more superior case of port, and one of claret too, and a box of cigars. Sophie assumed he had already been able to make free with whatever of the estate produce he wanted.
The cottages were all the same: all brick, with two windows each side of the front door, and a double chimney. Behind each were whitewashed mud buildings with thatched roofs that now housed pigs or lambing ewes, with hay stored up above. These had been the labourers’ homes before the present earl had had the new brick cottages built.
‘Thanks in part to your father’s business acumen,’ said Miss Lily as she gestured to Sophie to pull down the blinds to lessen the draught in the carriage. ‘New cottages, proper drains; the estate employs almost twice the men it used to before the low-lying pastures were drained and we could run better stock.’ She smiled. ‘I told you there was an obligation to be met.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘It is also a deep pleasure to be able to discuss this with you. Few young ladies even know that cottages need drains.’
Sophie was silent.
‘What are you thinking? Homesick?’
‘A little. Remembering the workmen’s cottages at Thuringa. My father had them rebuilt too.’
‘Your father is a kind man. When someone reminds him to be, I suspect.’
‘Samuel said that your family is a kind one too.’
Miss Lily raised a perfect eyebrow, though it was difficult to make out her face clearly within her fur-trimmed hood. ‘What are you really thinking?’
‘That the workers’ houses on the Overhills’ place are slab huts. With bark roofs.’
‘A landowner is free to spend his income as he wishes.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ said Sophie.
‘No,’ said Miss Lily. ‘Nor do I think that you would be happy married into a family that houses its workers in slab huts.’ She met Sophie’s eyes. ‘Mr Malcolm Underhill may also find a wife who notices such things, and speaks of them, deeply disquieting.’ She was silent for a while, then added, ‘Your experiences in Australia have made you different from English girls. Your intelligence too, of course. More … tolerant, perhaps, of those who are also different. You are unusual, Miss Higgs.’
‘Thank you.’ Sophie felt moved, as well as uncomfortable. Was Miss Lily’s comment really a compliment? She tried to keep her tone light. ‘It’s strange, waiting for his lordship to arrive. I feel a bit like St Nicholas is going to visit, leaving an earl in my stocking.’
‘A little too substantial for a stocking,’ said Miss Lily dryly.
‘If St Nicholas can drive his sleigh around the world in a night, he can fit an earl into my stocking.’
‘You almost sound as if you still believe in St Nicholas?’
Sophie grinned. ‘Of course I do! Or at least, I refuse not to believe in him.’
Miss Lily gazed at her from the shadowed corner of the carriage. ‘Sometimes I forget how very young you are. Your father is correct. Eighteen is far too young for a woman to choose the man she will be joined to all her life.’
‘Aren’t you helping girls do just that in their season?’ asked Sophie.
Miss Lily nodded. ‘I can’t change society’s rules. The season is when girls of a certain class are expected to find a husband. All I can do is help them to become more than inconsequential housekeepers or adornments. But as a colonial,’ she gave a rueful smile, ‘and with all that wonderfully valuable corned beef, you will have suitors for many years yet. Possibly I should not encourage you to make decisions now that will affect your entire life. You are in the unusual situation of being given time to choose. Despite that, ahem, “Understanding” with Mr Overhill …’
It was the first time Sophie had heard Miss Lily sound uncertain. ‘Did you have to make a choice so young?’ She still wondered if the ‘Miss’ was assumed, whether Miss Lily had been married and widowed, or even deserted by her husband. But who could desert Miss Lily?
‘Yes,’ said Miss Lily softly. ‘I had to choose.’
‘Do you regret the choice?’
Miss Lily was silent so long that Sophie wondered if she had offended her by prying. At last Miss Lily said, ‘I did not think so. But I have been wondering lately if perhaps my choice was wrong. If somehow I could erase … the past …’ Her voice faded.
Sophie waited. Eventually she asked, ‘Why might it have been wrong?’
‘No,’ said Miss Lily, her voice suddenly desperately sad. ‘I had no choice. Not really. But perhaps there was another way. Another life …’
The carriage stopped. Miss Lily put her hands back into her muff with what almost seemed like relief at the interruption. Evidently there were to be no details revealed of Miss Lily’s youth. ‘This is the Potters’ farmhouse. Alfred Potter and his sister, Miss Amelia Potter. The Potters will expect to entertain us — they keep a drawing room. Miss Potter will serve us elderberry wine, which we shall drink, which is why this is the last of the calls for today, as tonight we shall both have a headache. A girl who is not yet out is expected to avoid wine, but Miss Potter refuses to believe that her innocent elderberries might produce anything so improper as alcohol. I advise eating two slices of her lardy cake, firstly because it is excelle
nt, and secondly to buffer the wine.’
‘Yes, Miss Lily,’ said Sophie.
Dinner was … strange. Miss Lily seemed distracted. So, too, was Jones, who even let a drop of red wine stain the tablecloth, a misdemeanour Miss Lily carefully did not see.
‘Will you wait up for his lordship, Miss Lily?’ When two women dined alone, even a young woman could ask questions.
‘Yes. It is a long time since I have seen him.’ The voice, the gesture, were as perfect as always, but Sophie sensed a strange tension.
‘Shillings is so easy to love. His lordship must be fascinated by the East to spend so much time away.’
‘I’m glad you have learned to love Shillings. It is deeply precious to me too. And all who live here.’
Miss Lily seemed to pay attention for the first time that night. Why was she so worried? Perhaps his lordship didn’t know about her ‘lovely ladies’. Though he must know about Sophie, for he had wired her father. Or had he? Anyone could sign a wire ‘Shillings’, especially a cousin who helped manage his estate.
‘His lordship does know I am here?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Miss Lily quietly. ‘He is very well aware indeed.’
Chapter 16
Men control the world. The less a man feels he controls in the world outside, the more stringently he will try to control his wife and daughters.
Miss Lily, 1913
Sophie woke early on Christmas morning, even before the maid had freshened the fire. She listened to the noises of the house. The faint clang of the char woman scrubbing the hall — reception floors must be scrubbed even on Christmas morning. Mooing from the dairy, the chatter of dairy maids — cows too must be milked no matter what the day.
Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies Page 13
