A Complicated Woman

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Thora did not like the implication that she was selfish. ‘It would’ve been stupid. Mabel has different taste to me.’

  ‘You mean no taste at all.’ It was evident the sisters did not get on. Oriel wondered, therefore, how they had come to meet brothers, and was not surprised to learn that this had been sheer coincidence.

  Oriel gave a little laugh and attempted to make greater contribution to the discussion. ‘Well, I trust both your weddings will run more smoothly than my friend Dorothy’s. She wasn’t to know when she arranged it that it fell on the day of the VFL Grand Final, and the men were all behaving like petulant children because they couldn’t attend. Can you imagine anything more childish than spoiling someone’s wedding over a silly thing like football?’ Noticing the plummet in temperature, the uncomfortable laughs from Rose and Daphne and the glowers from some of the menfolk, she dropped her gaze to the floor in embarrassment and twiddled a strand of hair.

  ‘Clive tells us your parents are going to live in Queensland.’ Aunt Rose hurriedly changed the subject. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Bundaberg.’ Oriel was still playing with her hair.

  ‘Never heard of it. What’s there?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Bert Hinkler.’ Everyone looked at George. ‘You know! That young aviator chap. He’s from there.’ He turned to Oriel with a smile. ‘Your dad isn’t thinking of taking up flying, is he?’

  She laughed. ‘I doubt it. He just stuck a pin in the map and that’s where it landed.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a silly thing to do isn’t it?’ opined Rose.

  ‘No sillier than flying,’ retorted George. ‘If we were meant to have wings God would’ve given us them.’

  Clive’s mother, realizing that his sweetheart was probably exhausted by being interrogated, deftly steered the conversation round to family matters. Oriel did not know any of the members of whom Daphne and Aunt Rose spoke, but smiled politely as they included her in the dialogue, though dialogue was rather a misnomer. When Aunt Rose launched into speech it was difficult for anyone else to get a word in edgeways. Oriel herself could be garrulous in familiar company but amongst these strangers this trait receded. It would have been impossible for her to compete with Aunt Rose anyway. She glanced at a movement, caught Daphne making facial contortions behind Rose’s back, and averted her face to enjoy a private smile with Clive.

  ‘Well, d’you like my mum?’ he asked as he drove her home later. Oriel said that she did. ‘Yes, she’s nice, isn’t she?’ He smiled to show he was very close to his mother. ‘Everybody likes Mum. I’m sorry about Gran getting your name mixed up. She’s old, she didn’t mean anything by it, she likes you.’

  ‘Your sister Thora doesn’t.’

  Clive made a joke of it. ‘Well, your father doesn’t like me so that makes us even.’ There was the slightest hint of pique to his humour.

  Oriel was upset that he had been hurt by her father’s attitude. ‘You’re wrong. If he really doesn’t like anyone he never talks to them at all. It’s just that, well, fathers never approve of the men their daughters choose.’

  ‘Neither do sisters. Don’t worry about Thora, she just doesn’t want to see me hurt again. D’you think that’s why he intends you should go to Queensland, to get you away from me?’

  ‘No! If that was his intention it hasn’t worked. I’ve told you, I’m not going.’ She suddenly remembered something. ‘Oh, and what on earth did I say wrong about Dorothy’s wedding?’

  He laughed. ‘It wasn’t the wedding it was the mention of footy. You broke the golden rule of never discussing religion. My sisters’ fiancés are bitter rivals. Rob barracks for Collingwood and Bill supports Carlton. There’s been hell on over the seating arrangements at the weddings, trying to keep them apart.’

  Oriel remembered that the two men had been seated at opposite sides of the room this afternoon. ‘But I thought they were brothers?’

  ‘You never believed that old chestnut about blood being thicker than water, did you?’ laughed Clive. ‘Their mother almost has to divide the house to keep them from each other’s throats. The very mention gets them going – it’s a wonder you didn’t get them to blows this afternoon.’

  Only since Dorothy’s wedding had Oriel begun to realize how widespread was this fanaticism. She sighed and wondered how much else there was to learn.

  When they reached home she invited Clive in but he hesitated by the front porch, then pulled her out of the beam of the hurricane lamp and kissed her. ‘Shall we get married?’

  Oriel gasped and said, ‘Rather!’

  Clive uttered an enthusiastic exclamation and gave her a smacking kiss. ‘I suppose I’d better do it properly and ask your dad for your hand. Will they still be up?’ When Oriel said she thought so he laughed nervously. ‘I’m a bit scared. Can I leave it till tomorrow?’

  She replied that of course he could. Receiving a more tender goodnight kiss she waved him off, then, trying to withhold her excitement, went indoors.

  After greeting both her parents she asked casually of her father, ‘Did you mean it about going to Queensland?’

  Nat looked up from the hearth and eyed her with interest. ‘Aye, we’ve talked the matter over and we’ve decided to sell up here, houses, warehouse, everything. I never expected I’d have it to do twice in two years. I’m sorry, it’ll mean you’re going to lose your job—’

  ‘That won’t matter,’ said a pink-cheeked Oriel. ‘I won’t need it. I’m getting married.’

  Bright squealed and went to hug her daughter, who responded with delighted laughter. Nat was less effusive but tried to smile. Whilst he lacked confidence in this match he reasoned that it was not as if Clive were an axe murderer and he was obviously fond of Oriel. It was futile to resist once she had made up her mind. ‘I wish you both well.’ It was said with warmth.

  Pleased at this softening, Oriel herself adopted a conciliatory tone, just in case her father might have taken some offence at not being consulted. ‘Clive’s coming to ask officially tomorrow. He needs to bolster his courage before he faces you. But I couldn’t keep it a secret.’ Her eyes shone. ‘I wonder if Dorothy will still be up?’

  ‘Oh, no don’t disturb her in her condition,’ cautioned her mother.

  Her father was pondering his move to Queensland, envisaging the painful separation ahead. ‘Will you be getting wed before we go?’

  ‘Have you heard him? Of course she will!’ chaffed Bright. ‘You don’t think we’re missing our own daughter’s wedding?’

  After a celebratory glass of sherry, all went off to bed. Too excited to sleep Oriel lay awake for hours planning her great day, what sort of dress she would wear, the flowers for her bouquet. But into all this frivolity crept a sombre note. The more she thought of it the more she was riven with guilt over her intimacy with Errol. On their wedding night, would Clive be able to detect that there had been another man before him? If he could and she had not said anything…

  * * *

  She could tell no one, not even Dorothy, for her friend had always condemned such loose behaviour. The thought of whether to confess or not nagged at her mind for days, making her irritable and abstracted. Even whilst she was discussing wedding plans with her intended it became obvious to Clive that there was some underlying problem and eventually he begged her to tell him what was wrong. ‘There should be no secrets between a man and his wife – or at least we soon will be.’ Everyone had been delighted at the news of their whirlwind engagement.

  ‘That’s just it,’ stuttered Oriel.

  He got the wrong idea and his warm coaxing expression turned to one of dismay. ‘You’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘No! I’m just… frightened.’ She looked pleadingly into his eyes, so kind, so concerned, so loving. She must risk it or never be at peace. ‘You might not want me after I tell you but I have to because I’d always feel guilty about it if I didn’t. When we met we’d both been let down by people. I used to know this boy called Errol—’

  ‘Don’t
think that’s the only reason I asked you to marry me! Even if Laura walked in that door—’

  ‘I know, and I love you too, that isn’t what I mean.’ She anguished but finally came right out with it. ‘I was intimate with Errol.’

  A mixture of emotions flashed across Clive’s boyish features. He dropped his hold on her and turned away, looking out over the dark tortuous outlines of the gumtrees. Moths performed a frantic flight around the porchlight and only the chirruping of crickets broke the heavy, eucalyptus-perfumed silence.

  ‘It only happened once.’

  He nodded and kept his face averted.

  ‘I wish it had been you,’ donated Oriel in a small voice.

  ‘Ah well, it wasn’t.’ The nastiness was veiled in self-pity, intense jealousy.

  She was aching. ‘Did you and Laura…?’

  He blushed and seemed annoyed that she had even asked. ‘That’s different, we were engaged to be married.’

  ‘I thought I was going to be married!’

  ‘The bastard,’ muttered Clive, but Oriel could not help feeling that he saw Errol’s crime against himself rather than her.

  She waited for his decision, envisioning herself having to tell her parents that Clive had changed his mind about marrying her – and worst of all the reason.

  ‘I still love you.’ Hesitantly, he took her in his arms again, his eyes piercing. ‘I hate him, but I love you.’

  She swallowed. ‘And d’you still want to marry me?’

  He nodded, and a relieved Oriel broke down and wept against his chest, hoping that it would never be mentioned again. But something in the tenseness of his body told her that it would always be there between them.

  12

  Before a date could be set for matrimony, it was essential that a house be erected on the land that Oriel had bought upon first arriving in Melbourne, and if her father was to escape to Queensland before another winter set in this gave the prospective bricklayer only four months. With a building boom in progress, there was a dearth of candidates, but eventually they found a man who, after calculations, informed them that he could provide a single-storey brick residence by autumn and so the wedding was arranged for Empire Day in May, granting Nat sufficient time to escape another maybe fatal bout of bronchitis.

  Even so, there was a tremendous sense of rush about the weeks following Clive’s proposal. Nat tried to coax his daughter into taking over the farmhouse and so kill two birds with one stone – he would not have to go to the trouble of finding a buyer, nor would she have to worry about having a home built. But Oriel, independent as ever, insisted that she start her married life in a brand-new house with modern amenities.

  ‘Let her do it!’ Bright sighed when he tried to enlist her help. ‘She wants to be able to show that sister of Clive’s how to do things.’ She herself had not met Thora but had heard all about her and hated her almost as much as Oriel did. Thora sounded a thorough snob and her own recent wedding had been a display of this with all kinds of pretentious accessories, though again Bright only had her daughter’s word for it. At least the other one, Mabel, sounded decent and so did Clive’s parents, which was a relief when Bright was leaving her daughter to their mercies.

  With such lack of co-operation from his wife and daughter, Nat had been faced with a great deal of work, having three houses to sell and a business to wind up. But these were prosperous times and he did not have far to go to find a buyer. Within no time at all he had sold the land around his farmhouse for development, but in a rare show of sentimentality retained the garden that he and Bright had created, selling this and the house to a couple who were willing to pay a great deal more than he had done. Over the two years since they had arrived they had seen the farmland around Brighton shrink and housing was taking over the paddocks. The Englishness that had helped them to feel at home was quickly being eroded by American-type bungalows. Even a few of the Chinese gardeners had been persuaded to sell up, such were the profits being made. Nat hoped to make similar investments in Queensland.

  Though Bright did not share his enthusiasm, she did her best not to mope, especially today on this late summer’s afternoon, when she and Nat had been invited for tea at the future in-laws. Dressed in an ivory silk frock, she put the finishing touches to her hair and stood to attention for her husband. ‘There, how do I look?’

  ‘Rotten – well, what do you expect me to say?’

  ‘How long have we been married?’ scolded his wife, under the gaze of her younger daughter, who sat on the bed watching them dress. ‘Not two and a half years. What happened to all those compliments?’ Jocular smile fading, she projected her mind to their daughter’s coming nuptials and sighed as she lifted Vicky and pulled her frilly dress to order. ‘Oh God, this wedding’s going to be awful. All I keep thinking about is saying goodbye.’ Her eyes misted over and she hugged her small child.

  ‘You’re making me feel really good.’ Nat gave a last-minute inspection of his reflection.

  ‘I didn’t mean to!’ She sniffed and tried not to cry.

  ‘Wedding’s weeks away – we haven’t even met t’in-laws yet.’ Though he made light of it he too was feeling the wrench. ‘And at this rate we’re not going to. Where’s Lillian Gish?’ He went to call Oriel and, all together, they left for the Widdoweses’ residence.

  George and Daphne, conversant with Oriel’s origins, were intrigued to meet the scarlet woman who had borne her. George was particularly attentive, taking Bright’s jacket and ushering her to a comfortable chair. Noting the contrast between the two sets of parents – hers rather youthful and stylish, his old-fashioned – Oriel was nervous, knowing how unsociable her father could be if he did not take to someone.

  Following introductions and a brief exchange of words with little Victoria, George Widdowes asked in his cheerful manner, ‘So, how long’ve you been here now? Two years, is it?’ He received a nod. ‘You fought in the war, I suppose?’ A shake of head from Nat. ‘No? Reserved occupation then?’ Another negative response. George caught a hint that Oriel was uncomfortable and rubbed his blue serged knees. ‘Oh well, you managed to avoid it somehow. Good luck to you, I say. I had to come all this way to escape it. I make no bones about it, I saw it coming and I wasn’t going to let our Clive get mixed up in it. From what I read in the papers I might even have been called up meself if we’d stayed – at my age! I’m not saying I wouldn’t have defended England if she’d been attacked but I wasn’t fighting the Frenchies’ war.’ He shook his head. ‘Never get involved in somebody else’s business, that’s my motto and that’s what I’ve told our Clive.’

  When Nat merely responded with a thoughtful smile, Mrs Widdowes asked as if from habit, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Prince?’

  ‘Can do.’ Nat sat down in the chair that his hostess had indicated.

  Though knowing this was just her husband’s way and he did not intend to be rude, Bright felt embarrassed by his lack of manners and so was overzealous to compensate. ‘Oh, that would be lovely!’ She bounced Vicky on her knee as much from agitation as to keep the child from wriggling off her lap.

  George Widdowes, similarly eager to please, asked Nat, ‘Maybe you’d prefer a stronger drink?’ And when his guest showed interest he cried, ‘Oh well then! Come out here and tell me what you reckon to this ’ere parsnip wine I’ve made. Away, Clive.’ His son followed them out.

  Oriel took charge of her sister to allow Bright to drink her tea in comfort, dragging her by the arm with little affection to the gesture. Upon being told that Dorothy would be unable to be matron of honour due to her girth, her mother had suggested that Vicky make an enchanting flowergirl and of course Oriel could not reject the child, but there remained no sense of kinship in her heart. Vicky was the only one Oriel would not miss when the family went to Queensland.

  Daphne gave the little girl a glass of milk then asked, ‘Do you take sugar, Mrs Prince?’

  ‘No thank you – and please call me Bright.’ When the other commented on thi
s being an unusual name she laughed. ‘Actually I was supposed to be called Bridget but my father spelled it wrongly on a census form and everyone liked it so Bright it became.’

  ‘It was a man’s name originally,’ said Daphne knowledgeably, handing over the cup of tea. ‘I had a great uncle of the same name.’

  ‘So I’m not unique after all.’ Bright smiled politely over her cup, giving a sideways look at Oriel.

  ‘Have you managed to find a buyer for your house?’

  Bright said the deal was all but signed. ‘Yes, and the ones in Fitzroy too.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve got property then?’

  ‘Well, yes – but nothing grand.’ Bright wondered why she should feel self-conscious at being thought of as a woman of property. ‘The tenants are safe.’ She glanced at Oriel, who had insisted that this be taken into account. ‘The man who’s buying the houses says he was going to rent them out anyway, so that’s all right. Nat’s winding up his business affairs nicely as well so by the time the wedding comes we should be able to relax – thank goodness!’

  ‘We seem to have had nothing but weddings lately,’ smiled Daphne, picking up her own flowery cup and saucer. ‘First Mabel, then Thora and now Clive. You’re lucky you’ve got a big gap between your two. You’ll have a few more years to save up for that one’s wedding.’ She looked fondly at the little girl who had managed to wriggle to the floor and now stood playing with the fringing on the chenille tablecloth. ‘Don’t you mind that Oriel’s chosen to get married in our parish?’

  ‘Well, I would’ve liked to see her married at St James but—’

  ‘You’re Roman Catholics, then?’ Daphne sipped her tea but it was apparent this had come as a bit of a shock.

  ‘Well, I am.’ Bright glanced again at her daughter. They had had a bit of an altercation over this but it was reconciled now. ‘It doesn’t seem to interest anyone else in the family. If Oriel wants to get married at Clive’s church it’s not really anything to do with me. I married out of the faith myself. I’m sure my mother would turn in her grave.’