Not everyone Applauds
Emma and Henrietta joined the queue at the back of the room where two of the attending maids manned the hot water urn and the teapots. The woman in front of Emma was in animated conversation with her companion, turning her head repeatedly. Every time she did, the long green feather on her hat threatened to tickle Emma’s nose. As it swept past her face again, she took a half step back to avoid it.
“Ouch.”
Emma turned and found herself facing a young woman, her face screwed up in pain.
Emma was mortified. “I am so dreadfully sorry. Did I step on your foot?”
“You did.”
“I do apologise. I was trying to avoid the feather on that lady’s hat in front of us.”
“Mama,” the young woman said. She raised her voice. “Mama.”
The woman with the hat turned, causing Emma to twitch her head to avoid the feather once more.
“What is it?”
“Honestly. I told you that hat was too much for today. You should keep it for race meetings if you must wear it at all. No one wants a feather in their face when they’re having a cup of tea.”
“Oh, really Delia. It’s just a feather.”
“Which has given me a bruise on my foot.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Delia’s right, Gloria,” the woman’s companion told her. “That hat is dangerous. Hello, Mrs. Pickles, how are you?”
Henrietta, who had been trying not to laugh at the exchange, returned the greeting. “Have you met Mrs. Emma Berry?” she asked. “Her husband is Captain Daniel Berry of the PS Mary B.”
“No, but I’m very happy to. Anyone who can shut up Henry Collins is a friend of mine. How do you do, Mrs. Berry. I’m Angela Wrightson. And this lady with the feather in her cap is Gloria Rasmussen.”
Mrs. Rasmussen turned and nodded to Emma, her sharp blue eyes taking her in at a glance. Emma was glad she was wearing her new suit with the matching hat, very much in the latest style. Mrs. Rasmussen’s outfit was also very up-to-date, and clearly expensive.
“You may have shut him up,” Mrs. Rasmussen told her, “but he won’t have gone away or forgotten about you. He’s very powerful, you know, whatever we might think of him personally. The Society needs the support of his kind if we are to be of any use. We really can’t have our members causing friction.”
Angela Wrightson glanced between her friend and Emma but didn’t disagree with what Gloria Rasmussen had said. Emma felt she’d been very clearly put in her place.
They moved forward to the front of the queue. Nothing more was said as they received their tea and chose something to eat among the cakes, jam-and-cream-topped scones, and pastries. The two older women moved away, but the young woman, whose foot Emma had trodden on remained with them as they turned back into the room.
Instead of the rows of chairs they had left, there were now low small tables set up, with the chairs grouped around them. Very civilised Emma considered. Balancing a cup of tea, and a plate of edibles you couldn’t eat because you didn’t have a hand free, had never seemed very sensible to her. After all, you didn’t always have a man handy to hold your plate for you. Which brought a memory to mind.
Had it already been eight years since she’d been at River Bend with Deelie and Brendan, and the charming Lieutenant Forrester? The thought of time caused her to glance at the clock on the wall. She had half an hour to spare before leaving to meet Darcy at school. Daniel would be home tomorrow, and she was already gearing herself up for the arguments that would ensue as Darcy begged for the day off school to spend time with his father before Daniel steamed away again.
She could hardly blame the boy. She was looking forward to spending time with Daniel too. She missed his companionship since she’d stopped travelling on the Mary B, but at age seven, Darcy needed formal schooling, and the thought of sending him away to boarding school at that young age had not sat well with her, even without considering the cost.
“What is it, Emma?” Henrietta asked. Emma looked up startled. “That was a heartfelt sigh. You were miles away.”
“Oh, how rude of me.” She blinked.
There was a half-drunk cup of tea on the table in front of her and several small cakes she had put on her plate were no longer there. She had no memory of drinking or eating. Or of sighing. She was aware of the young woman’s gaze and realised she hadn’t caught her name. Henrietta probably already knew.
“Miss Rasmussen was asking you a question,” Henrietta said as if reading her mind. Of course. She had called Gloria Rasmussen, Mama, but then she could have been married.
“I wanted to know if you were a member of the Society, Mrs. Berry,” the young woman said. “I haven’t seen you at our meetings before.” Delia popped a small piece of chocolate slice into her mouth, taking care not to drop any crumbs on her grey-patterned white dress with its delicate lace paneled bodice.
“No, not yet anyway. Henrietta, Mrs. Pickles, invited me along today. I’ve lived in town only during the off-season until very recently and haven’t really had the chance to get involved.”
The off-season was also the time she and Daniel visited family and friends and generally relaxed. That is, when Daniel wasn’t working on repairing and sprucing up the Mary B for the next season or working on the house. Which reminded her. She’d meant to have Abe paint the hallway while Daniel was away. He hated any work being done on the house between trips downriver, claiming it made him unable to relax as he felt he should be helping. Perhaps there was time to do it tomorrow, but no, she would need Abe to carry the shopping home…
“I do hope you join,” Delia was saying. Emma pulled herself up sharply. There she was drifting off again. Whatever was the matter with her?
“We can always do with more members,” she went on. “And you certainly rallied everyone after what that dreadful man had to say. He isn’t the mover and shaker he would like to think himself,” she confided, leaning closer.
“No?”
“No, but I mustn’t say more. Mrs. Augustus does a very good job, but she has to walk a tightrope, keeping the Society on track while at the same time sweet-talking everyone of influence to keep the donations coming in.”
“The Society is very much needed for the work it does,” Emma agreed. “I will give it some thought.”
Unfortunately, after Gloria Rasmussen’s telling off, she was afraid the Society might not want her. Pity she hadn’t been drifting off into her own thoughts while Henry Collins was speaking.
“I wonder what young Delia knows about Mr. Collins,” Henrietta mused, as she and Emma made their way up High Street on foot. “Her father is the Rasmussen of Kentish, Rasmussen and Foyle, the solicitors in Heygarth Street. I imagine what they don’t know about the businessmen in town isn’t worth knowing.”
“Mmm?”
“Is something bothering you, Emma?” Henrietta asked. “You seem to be particularly preoccupied lately. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m always here if you need someone to talk to. Whatever you discuss with me won’t go any further. I’m the soul of discretion when it comes to my friends.”
Dear Henrietta. Emma had never been close to her own mother, although her relationship with Rose Haythorne had improved in recent years. She had always been close to her grandmother, but Eleanor had died three years ago, her famous herbal remedies unable to stop the decline of old age.
“Thank you, I very much appreciate your friendship,” Emma told her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I seem to drift off into daydreams at the drop of a hat.”
Janey had commented on it only yesterday. Bad enough to be doing it at home but in the social situation they had just left it was extremely mortifying. Had she missed anyone else addressing her? If she failed to acknowledge people when they spoke to her, they would feel she thought herself above them. She shuddered at the thought.
They stopped to let a carrier’s wagon turn into the main thoroughfare from Leslie Street. Henrietta put a calming hand on her arm. “You’re at a loose end, Emma. You need to find something to focus on, some purpose.”
“Isn’t being a married woman with a child enough?”
Henrietta laughed, taking her arm as they walked on.
“Some women could make that the sole purpose in their life, yes. Managing the home, the children, the husband. Involving themselves in good works. But not everyone. Not you. Or me. You need to find something for yourself. You had that on the riverboat, whether you realised it or not.”
They’d reached the Primrose Tearoom, a low, wide building tucked between two double-storey red brick buildings housing the Bank of Victoria on one side and the Shamrock Hotel on the other.
“Give it some thought,” Henrietta told her.
“Thank you. Say hello to Janet for me. I’ll come in for lunch tomorrow while I’m doing my weekly shop.”
They parted company and Emma hurried off to meet Darcy at his school. It was on Dickson Street, the narrower, northern end of High Street on the far side of Hopwood Square, almost opposite the new police station.
Their home was just around the next corner, on the short tag-end of Watson Street. There was just enough space there for two houses and a side yard each, fronting the river. Henrietta Pickles occupied the neighbouring house, on her own now since Janet had married some years earlier.
Emma loved the location. After growing up on a sheep station, with lots of space around her, she couldn’t imagine a better place to live in a town than right where she was. It also meant Daniel could moor the Mary B right at the bank below their house.
Of course, Darcy could walk himself to and from school for that short distance, but she liked to be there for him at the end of his day. And he seemed pleased to see her, waiting for him.
As she walked, she wondered what purpose she could possibly carve out for herself here in town. Making up herbal remedies was the only real skill she had, and with three doctors in town there was little call for that, although she did still supply some herbals for stations downriver. Of course, she also had some experience in solving suspicious deaths, but one couldn’t make a career out of murder.