Tyringham Park
1917
“Will she come back?” Charlotte asked, standing shivering beside Miss East’s bed in the middle of the night. Miss East, too sleepy at first to register that Charlotte was speaking for the first time since Victoria’s disappearance, lifted up the bedclothes, allowing the child to jump in and snuggle up to her.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Charlotte nodded, her wide eyes shining in the near darkness.
“Did you dream she came back?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Will you tell me about it?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see her again,” Miss East said after a while when Charlotte kept her silence. “Which is just as well. The nerve of her, saying you told tales about her when I know for a fact you didn’t. And pulling your hair the way she did. That was dreadful. There’s just a tiny chance she might come back to see your mother, but she won’t come anywhere near you, I can promise you that. She will never, ever, ever be in the same room with you ever again. Now close your eyes and think of Mandrake asleep in his stall.”
Charlotte’s body relaxed and minutes later her breathing became slow and regular. Miss East waited for a few minutes before extricating her arm and moving away from Charlotte so that the little girl wouldn’t become overheated and wake up again.
“Your father would be delighted to see this drawing,” Miss East said the next day as she picked up Charlotte’s latest discarded sketch of a horse. “It’s the sort of thing he does himself. He’ll be pleased to know you’ve taken after him. We must go up to the nursery and collect all the ones you did there so we can send them to him.”
“There’s none there. Nurse Dixon burnt them all.”
“Oh, dear. That’s a pity.”
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders to show she didn’t care. “I can do plenty more,” she said, picking up a fresh page.
Miss East sat at the table working out the next month’s roster while Charlotte stood beside her, filling the page with studies of horses viewed from different angles. Every now and then the two would look up from their work and smile at one another.
When Charlotte had asked one day if she could stay with Miss East forever, and become her daughter, the childless woman was given a glimpse of the joy that had been denied her. She cursed her stepfather. If the Lord wanted to forgive, let Him, but she never would.
“You know there are no such things as witches,” said Miss East that night after she finished telling a story in which Charlotte featured as the heroine who outsmarted a nasty witch, a theme repeated each night with slight variations. “Despite what Nurse Dixon used to say. They are made up to frighten children into doing what they’re told and to make stories more interesting.”
Charlotte thought for a while and asked in a small voice, “What about curses?”
Miss East was immediately alert. She had been preparing to bring up this topic for some time.
“No one can put a curse on you because it’s not possible,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Mind what I say. Nurse Dixon can’t make anything bad happen to Mandrake just by saying it. It’s not possible because she doesn’t have any special powers. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, and nothing bad is going to happen to you, so you must put Dixon’s curse out of your mind and not worry about it again. What she was doing was trying to scare you into keeping a secret.”
The trusting look on Charlotte’s face changed quickly to one of suspicion, and she moved away from Miss East’s side.
“What you have to concentrate on instead,” Miss East said as if she hadn’t noticed the reaction, “is the one great thing you were put on this earth to do, and knowing you, it will be something wonderful and remarkable.”
Later, when Charlotte was sleeping, an unsettling thought came into Lily East’s mind. When Charlotte had asked, the night before, “Will she be coming back?” could it have been Victoria she was referring to and not Nurse Dixon?
17
Passage to Australia
1917
On the ferry Elizabeth Dixon had targeted a clergyman who, within a fortnight, put her under the patronage of a benefactor who was travelling to Australia. As soon as Dixon heard the word ‘Australia’ she felt that destiny had stepped in and was being kind to her for once. Here was her chance to be reunited with her only friend, Teresa Kelly.
Mrs Sinclair, recently widowed, was emigrating to live with her daughter Norma, whom she hadn’t seen for eleven years, and Norma’s husband Jim – “He’s loaded with money, so my daughter tells me. I’ll soon be able to see for myself.”
Although Dixon had vowed never again to take on the role of carer, she made an exception for Mrs Sinclair because of her rich son-in-law and her level of fitness and health. There was little likelihood she would become a burden during the two-month voyage. The fact that the old lady would organise her travel documents and pay her fare as part of the arrangement (courtesy of the rich son-in-law) made Dixon think her luck really was turning at last.
“It’s not as if I need a companion,” Mrs Sinclair continued, “but it was either get one or have Norma come over to collect me. The way my daughter’s carrying on, you’d think I was in my dotage. I’m a long way from that, I can tell you, but she insisted, so I gave in for peace’s sake. I think she’s afraid I might get lost and she’ll never see me again. But look at you. A beautiful young woman like you should have a lot more interesting offers than mine. If my daughter could snare herself a rich husband there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to.” What a tactless thing to say, she thought, as soon as she’d said it, knowing that Elizabeth Dixon could be one of the millions of women facing a manless future because of the war.
What would she think of me if she knew I couldn’t even snare myself a poor one? Dixon wondered. She put her hand wearing the diamond ring up to her forehead in a gesture of grief. “My fiancé died in the trenches,” she said, squeezing out a genuine tear by thinking of Manus. “His family didn’t think I were good enough for him,” she added, sensing that the jewellery and her new good-quality clothes were at odds with her accent and limited use of words, “so they shoved me out on the street as soon as they heard and I never seen them again after that.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs Sinclair, commenting on Dixon’s grammar as much as the pathos inherent in her explanation.
“So it’s lucky I can start a new life and be able to visit a friend of mine at the same time.”
“And lucky for me that you came along when you did. Where did your friend settle?”
“Putharra. It’s in the outback. Don’t know where exactly.”
“We’ll find out as soon as we get there.” Handing back the reference the steward had written on Tyringham Park stationery, Mrs Sinclair asked, “Was it the son of the Park who was killed?”
Dixon nodded, looking too overcome to speak.
Two days into the voyage Mrs Sinclair asked Dixon to read to her, as she needed to give her eyes a rest from the glare reflecting off the sea. She took out a slender volume from inside the pages of a thick book and handed it over with a grin, turning the thick book over on her lap with the title showing.
“It’s not that I’m ashamed of reading penny dreadfuls,” she whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “it’s just that I like people to think I’m reading War and Peace.”
“I can’t read to you,” said Dixon. “I can’t read at all.”
There, she’d said it. It was the first time she had admitted to anyone she couldn’t read before they had a chance to find out for themselves. She didn’t feel she had the energy to make up two months of excuses as to why she couldn’t read at a particular moment.
“Oh. Well, never mind. We’ll have a game of cards to pass the time.”
She couldn’t play cards either.
Mrs Sinclair laughed and the volume of her laughter increased when Dixon confessed, on being questioned, that she
couldn’t draw, sing, knit, sew, embroider, ride, swim, dance or play chess or a musical instrument.
“Some companion you’ve turned out to be,” the old lady convulsed as the list lengthened. “You must be the most unaccomplished young woman I’ve ever met.”
Dixon looked as if she didn’t appreciate being the object of ridicule.
“Sorry about that,” Mrs Sinclair said at last, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “At least you’re easy on the eye and know how to dress. That’s much more important.” She looked along the deck. “Especially to those men who have picked this spot to walk up and down all day. It can’t be me or War and Peace they’re interested in.”
“They’re disgusting,” Dixon shuddered. “They’ve all got bits missing. I wish they’d go and drag themselves around somewhere else.”
Mrs Sinclair was taken aback at Dixon’s comments but reasoned that Dixon had every right to be bitter and didn’t chide her for her lack of sympathy. At least these men were going home, whereas she, poor girl, would never see her beloved’s face again.
Oblivious to Mrs Sinclair’s reaction, Dixon surveyed the deck. There were other cases being wheeled around by nurses. Fortunately they had rugs covering up their mutilations. It was whispered there were even worse cases, the sight of which would make women faint, too hideous to be seen in public, being cared for in the privacy of their cabins. Dixon was aware that if she had wanted to travel to Australia under her own steam, and if she hadn’t had the good fortune to meet Mrs Sinclair, she would be reduced to changing dressings and spoon-feeding cripples such as these to pay for her passage. My luck has definitely turned, she thought as she watched the shuffling soldiers trying not to look as if they were staring at her as they limped by. Even securing a berth at all had been lucky. On the ship’s return trip there would be no room for civilians, she had heard. All the berths would be taken by a fresh batch of volunteers, newly turned eighteen, and veterans patched up sufficiently to be judged fit enough to fight again.
Next morning Mrs Sinclair announced to the subdued Dixon that she would personally teach her to read, write, add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Dixon looked stunned. “Why would you do that for me?”
“To honour your brave fiancé who gave his life for our country. I consider it my patriotic duty.”
“You’re too kind,” said Dixon, using one of Lady Blackshaw’s phrases, but meaning it.
“Not a bit of it. If he had lived you wouldn’t be cast adrift as you are now, forced to earn your own living with so little preparation. You’d be living in the lap of luxury. Besides, I’ll enjoy the challenge. It will shorten the journey. I just know you’ll catch on in no time. I’m going to do a Pygmalion on you, and for your first lesson I’ll explain what that means.”
By the time the eight-week voyage was coming to an end, Dixon was devouring the romantic novels faster than the admiring Mrs Sinclair could supply them.
She thrilled to the story of the mousy heroine with the good heart and shabby furniture who thought the stern, hawk-eyed hero – tall, rich, masterful, pursued by a beautiful fair-haired heiress with social connections – didn’t think much of her (as she confided to the friendly, adoring boy next door) only to discover he had seen her true worth right from the beginning, noting the shabby furniture as a sign of integrity and sound values.
She thought of Teresa when she read about the city girl travelling to Africa where the square-jawed, rich farmer was contemptuous of her city ways until he saw her true worth when, cut off by flood-waters, she had to nurse him after he broke a leg.
There was something unsettling in all the stories, but she couldn’t work out what it was. She kept reading.
It didn’t take Norma and Jim Rossiter long to persuade Elizabeth Dixon to stay on with them as Mrs Sinclair’s companion. Her reading was coming along at such a thrilling pace she didn’t want to stop now. Meeting up with Teresa Kelly could wait a few months.
“You know Putharra’s at the back of Bourke,” said Jim. “The crows fly backwards out there.”
Norma didn’t wait for him to explain that tired expression. “More to the point,” she said, keen not to have her life’s routine interrupted by her mother, much as she loved her, “you don’t look like the type who’d want to shrivel up in that heat. You’d be wasting your sweetness on the desert air, as the poem says. Besides, you’ll never make it that far with no direct train line and the tough petrol restrictions, isn’t that right, Jim?”
Jim agreed that it was.
“Why don’t you write to her and tell her you are being well looked after and that you hope she can visit you. She’s probably dying for an excuse to make a trip to the city. Who wouldn’t, living out there in the middle of nowhere with nothing but dust and flies? Does that sound like a good idea to you?”
It sounded perfect to Dixon.
“There’s only one problem. Jim and I work long hours and eat most of our meals out, either at the hotel or at social functions. We have to go to every dogfight in the city to make contacts. Can you cook?”
“No, I never learnt,” said Dixon.
Mrs Sinclair erupted in laughter. “Forgot to ask you that one, Elizabeth!”
“What’s the joke?” asked Norma.
“Nothing important,” said Mrs Sinclair, giving Dixon the hint of a wink. “Let’s think about things for a bit. We’ll come up with something.”
She had the answer before the day was out. Along with some prime real estate on the north shore of Sydney, Jim had inherited two large city-centre hotels and had just acquired a third, the Waratah. It was run down and further out of town than the other two, but near a train stop. Mrs Sinclair offered to work there, doing the accounts – she would die of boredom playing ladies in an empty house – and training Dixon at the same time. All her married life she had done her husband’s books and knew she had a facility with numbers.
“I’m not ready to be put out to pasture yet. I might be sixty-two but I feel like a spring chicken.”
Jim and Norma liked the idea. They could continue their hectic lives exactly as before and Mrs Sinclair, rather than being the liability they expected, had turned herself into an asset.
“One small proviso,” said Jim. “I’d like Elizabeth to sit at the front desk and act as receptionist. A lot of commercial travellers use the place.”
Mrs Sinclair took Dixon with her to the bank. Funds sent from England had arrived, she was glad to discover. It gave her a feeling of independence to have her own money. When the proceeds from the sale of her house came through she would consider herself comfortably off, so that if things didn’t work out with Norma and Jim, she would be able to look after herself. While they were there she opened an account for Dixon.
“We’ll start with a guinea, just to impress the teller. My gift to you for giving me so many good laughs.”
Not intentionally, Dixon thought sourly, but smiled to pretend she didn’t mind.
She signed her new full name, Elizabeth Dixon, and felt a positive shift in the way she thought about herself.
“Every week, put some of your wages in that account,” Mrs Sinclair instructed. “It’s called a ‘running away from home’ fund, but seeing you’ve already run away, you can call it a ‘running back home’ account.”
“Good idea,” said Dixon. “I’ll do that.” A ‘being reunited with Manus and getting my own back on my enemies’ account would be a more accurate name for it, Dixon thought, tucking the bank slip into her bag.
Mrs Sinclair’s first impression of the Waratah Hotel was that the men’s bar with its tin chairs and tiled walls and floor was no proper place for a woman so, with Jim’s approval, she had the large space beside the office fitted out with a carpet and comfortable armchairs.
Mrs Sinclair fussed over any woman who came to stay, especially those on their first trip, afraid of the pickpockets and confidence tricksters they had been told populated the city. She gave them so much help and information they felt conf
ident setting out to find their way around. Wives of businessmen, Royal Easter Show spectators, women on their own, and those who came to see medical specialists, were all treated as if they were personal friends.
Dixon watched, listened and learned.
In the Ladies’ Parlour, women put up their aching feet, drank tea or sherry, discussed the specialists’ diagnoses, showed off their purchases, read, exchanged addresses, forged friendships, and wondered about the private lives of the friendly Englishwoman and her good-looking assistant who wore a diamond engagement ring. They returned to their homes full of praise for the Waratah and the city where they hadn’t met one pickpocket or confidence trickster.
“One more thing,” said Mrs Sinclair, guiding Dixon into a bookshop. In the classics section she took out Middlemarch and Great Expectations and measured them for size. “This one will do nicely,” she said, choosing Middlemarch and taking it and a dozen penny dreadfuls to the cashier and paying for them.
Outside the door she tore the middle 200 pages out of Middlemarch and inserted one of the romances into the space. It fitted exactly.
“No one will ever know,” she grinned. “And it will do your image a power of good, not that it really needs it. Now we should have time to read one of these each . . .” She looked at Devil Lover and Turbulent Heart before choosing one and handing Dixon the other, “before we have to face those boring old numbers again. And don’t show me up by finishing before I do.” She smiled fondly at Dixon. “Are you sure you weren’t able to read all along?”
Dixon’s writing hadn’t kept pace with her reading, so after two months Mrs Sinclair helped her write a letter to Teresa Kelly at the remembered address. There was no mention of Tyringham Park – she would stay quiet about what had happened there to give herself time to censor the parts she didn’t want Teresa to hear about, especially Miss East’s dismissal of her and Manus’s rejection of her marriage proposal. After a week she watched for the mail each morning, curious to know how surprised Teresa had been to hear from her, how she was coping with her old husband and older mother-in-law, and if there was a baby on the way.
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