Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

  ‘Mrs Feehan put us in touch with a Dolores Devine. She is on the stage in Melbourne at the moment. An act with snakes, I believe.’

  ‘That’s where she ended up? Good old Dolores. Always knew she’d do good with them pythons,’ said Ebenezer tightly.

  ‘She’s welcome to them,’ said the sergeant shortly. ‘The police have spoken to both Miss Devine and Mrs Feehan. Miss Devine, I gather, was once Annie Sproggs.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘According to the statement given by Miss Devine: The orphanage sold me to Mrs Atkinson’s boarding house as a maid. All we got was the scraps and a beating if we looked at a man sideways. Kept me down in the cellar when I weren’t working. I ran away and Madame said she’d make sure the old biddy would never find me again.’

  The sergeant looked at Ephraim and Ebenezer. ‘That sound right to you?’

  They nodded without speaking, still hand in hand.

  ‘Seems this circus of yours was in the business of rescuing girls. Funny thing is,’ went on the sergeant, ‘both women say the skeleton was already there when they arrived. Both of them just knew the poor lady upstairs as Madame. But neither of them,’ he paused and looked straight at Ephraim and Ebenezer, ‘knew anything about two brothers, one the ringmaster, one the clown. But Miss Devine did mention two sisters who joined the circus and then dressed as men.’ He looked at his notes again. ‘Mrs Euphrasia Pittkin and Miss Eulalie Green.’ He looked up. ‘Well?’

  Ephraim looked at Ebenezer. Ebenezer nodded.

  ‘We want to confess,’ said Ephraim. ‘We’re murderers. The both of us.’

  Women? Murderers? Blue sat stunned.

  The door opened and the housekeeper brought in tea on a silver tray. Blue looked at the woman dazedly. Tea didn’t belong in the midst of this sort of drama. But there it was — the silver pot, the matching milk jug, the cups and saucers, the plate of cake.

  The sergeant seemed glad of the interruption. The housekeeper handed around the cups, thin cream china with green rims and delicate saucers, so different from the tin mugs Blue had drunk from for the past year and a bit, held the tray so they could take milk and sugar, and small plates for the slices of sponge cake, oozing cream and jam.

  She should have been too shocked to eat. But her last sponge cake had been nearly two years earlier. She broke off a little with the cake fork, felt the lightness, sweetness and creaminess mingle on her tongue, then looked at Mah and saw similar delighted memory on her face. Mrs Huggins might have been a racist and a disciplinarian, thought Blue, but the servants at home had eaten what the family did, sponge cake and roast chicken.

  She glanced at Ebenezer and Ephraim, trying not to stare. Were they really murderers? They couldn’t be, no matter what they said. But women?

  Two years ago she wouldn’t have thought it possible. But she’d lived with a man who was a bearded lady one minute, a harem dancer the next, and all the while her friend Fred. She’d seen Mrs Olsen and Gertrude as the Boldini Brothers, herself and Mah as boys.

  Ebenezer’s and Ephraim’s voices were deep for a woman’s, light for a man’s, though Ebenezer’s (Euphrasia’s?) was hoarse from all the shouting. They were tall for women, even above average for men, and broad-shouldered. Was that why they slept by themselves, she thought, never sharing a caravan or tent with Fred or Ginger? Had Fred known?

  ‘Your moustaches,’ she said quietly to Ebenezer. False hair could look real, but Fred had said his fake beard irritated his skin. How had Ebenezer and Ephraim stood it for so long?

  Ebenezer/Euphrasia looked almost apologetic. ‘They’re real. Our Aunt Dorothy had one even better. The women in our family always get hairy as we get older.’

  Blue looked at the light-grey-and-white stubble on Ephraim’s chin. All at once she saw a woman, not a man, a woman with breasts bound up as her own had been.

  Fool the eye. She had thought herself so superior, fooling a crowd into thinking she really might be a mermaid, when all the time she was fooled by two of those she thought of as family.

  And still are, she thought. Whatever Ebenezer and Ephraim have done, whoever they are, they have been good to me. She shuffled over and sat next to Ephraim. Mah followed her. ‘Budge up,’ she said to Ebenezer.

  They faced the sergeant together.

  He nodded slowly and reached over to put his cake plate on the side table. ‘Start at the beginning,’ he said to Ebenezer/ Euphrasia and Ephraim/Eulalie.

  ‘We’re sisters,’ said Ebenezer heavily — Blue found she couldn’t think of her by any other name. ‘When Dad died we inherited the farm. Bananas. Hard work but we did all right. A good house. Syd was one of the pickers when he came courting. Seemed nice enough. Not many blokes want a woman who’s six foot two. I married him, and Lallie here, she lived with us. Three children I had.’ She looked at Ephraim, anguish in her eyes. ‘Married, all of them. Don’t know how they’re doing now.’

  ‘Broke our hearts it did, not being able to see them and their bairns,’ said Ephraim.

  ‘Syd was always a bit of a drinker. Got a temper on him then, but only Friday nights. We learned to keep clear of him then. Let him sleep it off. But after our Jean got married he began to hit the bottle proper.’

  ‘And hit us,’ said Ephraim. ‘Not just with his fists neither. With his belt.’ She pulled up her shirt a little, showing great gash-like scars on her ribs, as well as the old stockings binding her bosom flat.

  ‘You should have told the police,’ said Blue.

  Ephraim snorted. ‘I did. “Don’t come between a man and his wife.” “A man’s home is his castle.” Didn’t want to tell the bairns, not that their own dad could do something like that.’

  ‘It got worse,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Whatever money we made he drank. Broke my jaw and three ribs, that last time. Wanted us to mortgage the farm. Well, I wasn’t doing that. Our granddad cleared that land. It’ll belong to the young ’uns after us. Then the circus came.’ She glanced at Ephraim. ‘Couldn’t afford to see the main show. But the man at the gate — well, he weren’t a man, he was Dolores, but we didn’t know that then — he let us in for nothing. We went in to see Madame together. Thought if she could tell the future she might tell us what to do.’

  ‘She asked us for silver,’ said Ephraim. ‘We stood up to go then, said we ain’t got none. She told us to sit down. She looked into her mirror and said she could see us leaving Syd, saw us with new lives and happy grandchildren.’ She took a breath. ‘That night when Syd came home we had our bags packed. Said we were going. He could have the farm for the rest of his life, but we weren’t selling. Euphrasia and I would move in with our Sally and her husband. “Not while I’ve got breath in my body,” he said. “What is mine I’ll keep.” He took off his belt.’

  ‘And I hit him on the head with the frying pan,’ said Ebenezer. ‘He fell down but his eyes were still open, so Lallie hit him with the lamp. Then he was still.’

  ‘We ran,’ said Ephraim simply. ‘Ran to the circus, waited in the dark to find Madame, to ask what she saw us doing next. An’ she told us she’d seen us travelling with the circus. That was our future now. And one day we could come back, and see the bairns and the farm run by the young ’uns.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But we ain’t been back to see them yet. Suppose now they’ll hang us, and we never will.’

  The room was silent. Outside, a native pigeon gave a long series of hoots. The rain would be falling on wet paddocks, thought Blue, and Sheba would be happy in her shelter. But her mind kept arrowing back to that sad house among the banana trees, the frightened women, and the dead man on the floor.

  ‘Let’s get this straight.’ Sergeant Patterson’s voice was quiet in the hush of the room. ‘You bashed him with the frying pan. When did you cut his head off?’

  The sisters shook their heads, almost identically. ‘Couldn’t do that,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Not to no one.’

  ‘There’s no warrant out for Euphrasia Pittkin and Eulalie Green. There would be if you were wanted for murder.’


  Ebenezer/Euphrasia shrugged. ‘Don’t matter if there is or there isn’t. We done wrong. We need to face up to it. Can’t run forever.’

  ‘I’m going to have to arrest you,’ said the sergeant gently.

  Ebenezer nodded. ‘We know. We’ve talked about that. We’ve had some good years in the circus, more than we deserved. It’s time to face our sins now.’

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ said Blue urgently. ‘You just fought back! You didn’t mean to kill him!’

  ‘Self-defence,’ said the sergeant. ‘That’ll be taken into account.’

  Ebenezer met his eye. ‘It weren’t self-defence. That first blow maybe. But not the second. If sister hadn’t done it, I would have.’

  Miss Matilda came over to them, bent to look into their faces. ‘Don’t say any more,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll get a lawyer for you. Don’t say anything till you’ve spoken to him.’

  ‘Can’t afford no lawyers.’

  Mr Thompson spoke from his armchair. ‘We’ll take care of that. Sergeant, can’t they stay here, till you’ve checked their story?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘Not now they’ve confessed. But we’ll look after them. Me wife’s a good cook,’ he added to the sisters. He looked sympathetic. But it’s not him who’ll try them, thought Blue, not him who might condemn them to be hanged, for killing a man who beat them.

  ‘Just tell me who mutilated Syd Pittkin and put him into the House of Horrors,’ said the sergeant quietly.

  Ebenezer looked surprised. ‘That ain’t Syd. Skeleton was already hanging there, like we told you. Saw it two days after we joined the circus, and it looked old then.’ She paused. ‘Not as old as it looks now,’ she added. ‘But not fresh-like. That weren’t our Syd. Madame will know who it is. Madame knows everything. Looks into the future and sees all the answers.’

  Not now, thought Blue. Perhaps all Madame will see now is death.

  Chapter 30

  The rain had stopped, though the hovering clouds hinted that it was only resting. Blue had expected handcuffs. Instead the sergeant opened the door of his car and ushered Ebenezer and Ephraim gently inside, with the bag of women’s clothes Miss Matilda had packed for them.

  She and Mah waved as the car drew away from the homestead, and kept waving till the car was lost as the drizzle thickened.

  Blue turned to see Miss Matilda watching them. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Blue. ‘We’ve brought you nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Nonsense. Life had become far too boring,’ said Miss Matilda lightly. ‘At least I have something new to discuss with Tommy at dinner. Elephants, mermaids, arsenic poisoning …’ Her gaze softened. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Miss Laurence.’

  ‘Could you call me Blue?’ Blue shrugged. ‘It’s my real name. The name I feel is me, I mean.’

  Miss Matilda nodded. She looked from Blue to Mah and back again. ‘I think you should both move up to the house. You’re welcome to stay in the caravans, of course. The men will keep an eye on you. But you’d be alone down there now.’

  Blue looked at Mah. The caravans were small and damp. Suddenly she longed for a real bed, a room with a dressing table and wardrobe.

  Mah nodded. ‘If it’s not too much trouble …’

  Miss Matilda smiled. ‘No trouble at all.’ She bit her lip. ‘You’re even getting Tommy interested in life again.’ She turned, as the sound of her husband’s stick came towards them.

  ‘Bad business,’ he said. ‘Hope we can sort it out soon. Miss Laurence, Blue, your Mr Cummins called me this morning. He plans to come up here next week to explain your situation to you.’

  ‘All the way up here for me?’

  ‘My dear girl, you are a considerable heiress. I suspect he’d travel to Timbuktu if you needed him to.’

  ‘You mean I really do own the factories?’

  ‘Yes and no. You inherit the income, under the trust. If your brother had lived, he’d have controlled the company, with a quarter of the income to you.’

  Miss Matilda gave a small, unladylike snort. ‘Women, of course, are entirely incapable of managing a business.’

  Mr Thompson patted his wife’s hand. ‘Yes, dear. But don’t worry. We forgive your little feminine weaknesses.’

  Miss Matilda laughed. ‘Kind of you, darling.’

  ‘Anyhow,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘You can discuss all that with Mr Cummins. But he assures me that you will receive a quite adequate allowance. He will arrange all that next week. It will be enough for you to set up your own household, with a suitable companion, of course. But we’d be extremely happy for you to stay here, as long as you wish. Isn’t that right, my dear?’

  ‘I’m a poor helpless female. What would I know?’ said Miss Matilda. ‘Come on. Let’s find you bedrooms, then look at clothes. A suitable feminine activity.’

  The clothes, it seemed, were to be suitable for young ladies, not circus brats. Miss Matilda sat in the chair by the dressing table as Mah and Blue tried on dress after dress, old ones that her stepdaughter had grown out of, others that looked suspiciously new, with silk stockings and jazz garters. Blue held up a pair of cream silk knickers enquiringly.

  Miss Matilda grinned. ‘I ordered a few things from the Stores in town yesterday. I thought you’d both want to dress like young women again. I had to guess the size. The Lees will exchange anything that doesn’t fit. How are the shoes?’

  ‘You bought Laurence’s shoes,’ said Blue.

  ‘Of course. They’re the best.’

  ‘It’s all beautiful,’ said Mah. ‘I … I’ve never owned anything new before.’

  ‘Not even knickers?’ The words were out before Blue could pull them back. Surely people didn’t wear second-hand knickers?

  ‘Made them myself out of second-hand petticoats ever since I was six. Third- or fourth-hand maybe. Velvet,’ breathed Mah, stroking a cloche hat.

  Blue thought of her wardrobe of new clothes burned in the fire. She was glad Miss Matilda had put Mah in the bedroom next to hers, and not in one of the servants’ rooms, though she suspected that in this house, as at her old home, the servants’ rooms were comfortable too. But which side of the green baize servants’ door you ate and slept on still mattered.

  Miss Matilda watched them, a strange expression on her face. ‘I remember when a new dress was the most wonderful thing in the universe. All I had were darned frocks of my mother’s with the hems taken up. Then my great-aunt gave me a new dress — neither of us knew the relationship then; we thought she was simply a friend of another aunt — my mother’s sister, the other side of the family. White and lace that dress was. Every wool cheque after that I bought myself something pretty. My mother loved pretty things too.’

  And now you’re enjoying watching us feel the same shock of pleasure, thought Blue.

  Miss Matilda ran her finger along a V of lace, the only decoration on a long-waisted pale yellow dress. ‘I still like new clothes. Frivolous, of course, but what is life without a dash of frivolity? Men have cricket. Totally useless, time consuming and they adore it. I’ve never understood why a woman doing a man’s job has to wear old moleskins and a shirt. Pretty things make people happy.’

  She grinned again. Suddenly Blue could see her as the girl with her first new dress. ‘Life would be a lot more interesting if men wore lace and velvet, as they did in Queen Elizabeth’s day. But I can’t get Tommy to agree.’

  She stood up. ‘And none of this is getting the accounts done. Make free with the house, though you will have to get past Nurse Blamey to visit Madame. We are all bullied a bit by Nurse Blamey,’ she added wryly. ‘But we couldn’t have got through the last five months without her. There’s a good library downstairs — have you read any of Miss Sayers’s work? Or perhaps you shouldn’t,’ as Blue shook her head. ‘Perhaps murder mysteries aren’t quite what you should be reading now. The Jeeves series perhaps … I’ll look it out for you.’ Her look became serious. ‘No one will hurt you here, I promise,’ she said quietly.

&n
bsp; ‘You can’t be expected to look after us forever,’ said Blue. But she didn’t want to plan a future yet, even one with money. It was hard enough to take in the changes of the last few days.

  Miss Matilda seemed to read her thoughts. ‘I think both of you need a holiday,’ she said. ‘Wait till your Mr Cummins arrives and we can talk about things then. Till then …’ She shrugged. ‘Read, go for walks, swim in the river — though ask me about swimming first. The water can come up unexpectedly in weather like this. Do either of you ride?’

  Mah shook her head.

  ‘I used to,’ said Blue. She shrugged. ‘No way I could now.’

  Miss Matilda looked at her speculatively. ‘Nice girls used to ride side-saddle when I was a girl. I wasn’t a nice girl, but there’s still a side-saddle in the stable.’ She smiled. ‘You might like to pack a picnic and go out with Joseph next weekend.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Mah. ‘Horses are too big.’

  ‘Sheba’s bigger,’ said Blue.

  ‘Elephants don’t gallop.’

  Blue grinned. She wondered what Joseph would say about a picnic on an elephant?

  She looked at herself in the mirror. A young woman looked back — a pretty young woman, with fashionably short hair curling in a way that didn’t make the new red growth look so strange. A blue linen dress that left her brown arms bare, matching blue shoes with small rosettes, and her own silver bracelet.

  Mah grinned at her in the mirror, a different Mah too, in a deep red dress that looked perfect with her black hair.

  ‘We look beautiful,’ whispered Mah.

  Blue wondered if Joseph would think so too.

  Chapter 31

  They telephoned the sergeant after breakfast the next morning. Blue felt guilty eating scrambled eggs and fried tomatoes when Ebenezer and Ephraim were in gaol. It was still impossible to think of them by any other names. She picked up the telephone receiver gingerly. She’d never made a phone call before. They’d had a telephone at home, but none of her friends had ever needed to telephone her.