CHAPTER 17

By the time I made my way back to the room where I had left Lavinia, the fire was blazing again, a trolley stood before the hearth laden with tea, sandwiches, pastries, a brown bottle, a soda siphon and crystal glasses, and a tall handsome man with sailor’s whiskers was sitting on a sofa and talking to Lavinia as if they were dear old friends. All that warmth and comfort, and yet suddenly I was watching it from far away, as if I were buried in a transparent mountain of ice.

I watched the redness creep from Lavinia’s nose across her cheeks as she sipped her tea. I tried to catch her eye. Lavinia saw me and smiled.

‘There you are. Your Royal Highness, may I present our assistant wardrobe mistress and indispensable helpmeet, Mary Ann Carroll.’

Lord, the Queen’s son himself. I curtseyed deeply. The Duke beamed at me over the rim of his seltzer glass. ‘Indispensable, eh? Young woman, your charming employer was just about to give me indispensable advice. I have confessed to a phobia. You know what scares me? Chaps in black with tight white collars. Hundreds of ’em. They sweat like cheeses. They declare themselves loyal subjects. Their loyalty goes on and on … Mrs Stratton, I am so bored with public life and so worried I will lose patience. What should I do?’

Lavinia lowered her eyelashes. ‘Pardon me, as a mere American citizen, I would never presume …’

‘Presume away,’ said the Duke. He stretched out his long legs. His boots were the softest leather I had ever seen.

‘Very well,’ said Lavinia. She sounded reluctant, yet I knew at once that all hope of speaking to her in private had gone, and the ice tightened its grip on me. Where were the tremors, the sneezing attacks, the anxiety? A new Lavinia spoke to the Duke in the voice of calm authority. ‘You should be warm and gracious and sunny, but not too familiar. You should make everyone you talk to feel very special.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the Duke eagerly. ‘You are right. You put it so well.’

‘You must be patient with pompous fools and rude fellows. Some people assume I must be very stupid because my head is small. And therefore my brain must be underdeveloped.’

‘That is prejudice of the worst sort. You have a rare intelligence.’

‘Your Royal Highness, please save your compliments. I have not finished yet.’

I topped up Lavinia’s teacup. Would I ever get a word in? But even if I could, what would I say about what I had just seen?

‘When a speech is very long and very dull,’ Lavinia continued, ‘you must open up a corner of your mind and picture something you love to do. That will make you appear attentive.’

‘Lord, yes. Why did I not think of that?’

‘We shall practise. I am a dignitary with a scroll. I am declaring my loyalty … Blah blah blah … Is there a picture in your mind?’

A pause. Then the Duke nodded. ‘I am on the quarterdeck of the Galatea. A crisp morning. Stiff breeze from the south-west …’

‘Good … Blah blah … And again?’

‘Hunting kangaroo. Blighters hopping everywhere …. Got one.’

‘Yes, Your Highness looks most sanguine … Blah blah … and now?’

He smiled. ‘A mere American citizen.’

‘Are you playing a parlour game?’ said Minnie. She stood in the doorway in her best morning gown, buttoned up to the lace at her chin, curls neatly pinned and fluffed, her red cloak and basket over her arm. ‘I’m glad to see you’re better,’ she said to Lavinia. ‘I suppose you have come to fetch me back.’

‘There is no hurry,’ said Lavinia. Then her hand flew to her mouth, in amazement at what she had uttered.

The Duke said he understood. The life of an artiste was so demanding. It grieved him to part with such a fascinating pair of sisters when they had only just met, and he had so much to learn, but … The equerry ushered us all out. The Duke saw the sisters into the black carriage, arranged a mohair rug over their laps, kissed their hands, declared himself their loyal subject. I climbed in and sat opposite, unnoticed, as the Duke pressed a bottle of elixir into Lavinia’s hand — ‘For your cold, it works wonders’ — and stood waving as the carriage swept away.

The ice mountain that had held me prisoner was gone. I wanted to scream. But I was silenced as surely as if my lips had been sewn together.

The carriage was much better sprung than the rickety cab that had taken us to the Duke’s Sydney quarters, and the journey back to our hotel was smooth and quiet. The sisters sat bolstered like figurines in ivory cushions. The only movement came from Lavinia, smoothing her gloves down her fingers, over and over again, until Minnie put out her own gloveless hand towards her.

‘He summoned me.’ Minnie’s chin had a defiant tilt. ‘He said he would like one of my red slippers. So I gave him one. The other is here.’ She lifted the cover of her basket and gasped. ‘I swear I didn’t know this was here. I will send it back.’

Lavinia leaned over, slowly pulling out a string of rubies. She inspected each gem with a practised eye.

‘I would not send it back if I were you. It might cause offence.’

‘Whatever has come over you, Vin?’ Minnie stared at her. ‘Of course I shall send it back. I am not … You know I have never wanted jewels.’

‘A diamond.’

Minnie frowned.

‘That is what you said at Seymour,’ said Lavinia. ‘Let me have one diamond.’

‘Oh yes.’ Minnie smiled, stroked the shoe in her basket. Lavinia shifted in her seat. The ruby necklace slid off her lap and I retrieved it, put it back in the basket, as Lavinia bent towards Minnie’s neck. ‘You are using a new scent.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘It reminds me of rosebuds.’

I leaned back, thoughts rushing to and fro, seeking escape. I closed my eyes.

After a while, Lavinia spoke. ‘Mary Ann?’

I feigned a little snore.

‘The poor soul, she works so hard,’ said Minnie.

Another pause. Then Lavinia’s voice, low and urgent. ‘Minnie. We must speak plainly.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘You have broken your promise to me. You have gone looking for the spark.’

‘No, it came looking for me. And it found me.’ Her voice was wondering, childlike. ‘Don’t think I am in love.’

‘Lord save us, were you alone with him? What did he do?’

‘Nothing you need worry about, dear. He said he was my loyal subject, and I must command him. So I did.’

‘Minnie, how could you?’

‘We are not as other women,’ said Minnie with a new firmness. ‘The rules are not the same for us. So I will be discreet, but I will follow the spark.’

‘Do you not see? You cannot do this. You will be collected.’

‘Collected?’

‘You are rare. A prize. No matter how discreet your plans, no matter how honourable the … other party, in his heart of hearts you will be pinned like a butterfly …’ Lavinia’s voice rose, wavered. She broke off into sneezes.

Minnie answered in the deeper tones of a reassuring older sister. ‘Something may be pinned. Some keepsake. But not me.’

A long pause. I opened my eyes a tiny slit. Minnie had grabbed her sister’s hand, held it to her heart. Lavinia looked away, her clean handkerchief covering most of her face.

‘Say something, Vin,’ said Minnie. ‘Or I will know only that you despise me.’

‘Of course I don’t despise you. It is only that I despise stolen kisses. And I do not want you to be hurt.’

‘But it hardly hurts at all. That is the wonderful thing.’

I had to marvel at Minnie, at what a strange package she was. Everything she had said to her sister was totally sincere.

Minnie threw her arms around her sister. ‘Vin, are you crying? What’s the matter?’

‘It is only my cold …’ Lavinia lowered her handkerchief. ‘Oh, see, Mary Ann is with us again. Did you have a nice nap?’

Minnie inched forward, patted my knee as I shrank from the touch. ‘Mary Ann knows my secret.’

‘Indeed?’ said Lavinia, with a brave attempt at archness. ‘And what might that be?’

‘Ladies may collect too,’ said Minnie.

‘If you please, Mrs Stratton, I don’t know anything.’

‘I mean my beauty secret, of course.’ Minnie’s smile had grown a little steely. ‘My new scent.’

‘The attar of rosebuds? Then you should have a little bottle made up for her, Minnie. It is light, fresh, most becoming.’

Minnie looked at the bottle of elixir the Duke had given her sister, lying on the ivory cushions. ‘Vin. You must remember to take your medicine.’ She began to sing, motioning for Lavinia to join in, but her sister sat silent.

When hollow hearts shall wear a mask,

’Twill break your own to see:

In such a moment I but ask

That you’ll remember me.

I sat very still. It was not just my lips that were sealed. My whole body was bound in a spiderweb. The strands stretched tight over Belly, but they did not break.

When I had opened that door upstairs in the Duke’s Sydney quarters, while Lavinia sat fretting in the parlour, the scent of a vast garden of roses had poured out to fill my head. I felt gusts of warm humid air and saw points of light dancing on a high ceiling. Slowly I moved into the room, as if I were swimming. The lights on the ceiling were reflected from a child’s white bathtub in the centre of the floor. In the tub Minnie reclined, pink soapy water up to her chin, her curls fanned out over the rim. Her face was turned towards the ceiling and her eyes shone with delight or tears.

‘Miss Warren?’

Minnie turned her head, blinked through the steam. ‘Is my sister here?’ I nodded. Minnie’s face went blank, then contorted in panic. ‘She is waiting downstairs? Is she coming up?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Does she know where we are?’

‘No.’

Minnie sighed, lowered her lids. Then she raised one glistening arm from the perfumed water, inspected it with studied languor. From sheer habit, I looked for a towel. On the floor I saw a cambric shirt; a gentleman’s trousers and morning coat, of very fine fabric and cut; a gentleman’s undergarments; and a gentleman’s boots, the softest leather I had ever seen. They were strewn carelessly, but they seemed to lead in a trail towards a huge four-poster bed, hung with embroidered curtains. On the floor at the foot of the bed were a little gown, petticoats, a camisole, drawers, stockings. I followed the trail, picking up Minnie’s things, and pushed open the bedcurtains. The bedclothes were stripped back to rumpled sheets. On the pillow was a yellow silk cravat.

The rose smell was cloying. A sound of a small waterfall.

‘Leave those things.’ Minnie’s voice from behind me had a sharp edge. I turned. Minnie was standing in the tub, pink and mother naked. She bent down to retrieve a white towel from the floor, beneath her discarded Red Riding Hood cloak. ‘Since you’re here, you may help me dry. But I’ll dress myself today.’ She wrapped herself in the towel, stepped out of the tub. I kneeled down and rubbed her briskly through its folds, fighting a temptation to rub much harder than I should. ‘Pin up my hair.’ The curls slipped and slid out of the pins. ‘Mary Ann, let us be clear. You have not been in this room. You did not see me.’

‘I …’ How could I be party to such brazen deception?

‘You know nothing of this room and I know nothing of where this’ — she gently nudged Belly — ‘comes from.’

‘But —’

‘It’s quite simple. You keep my secret, I keep yours.’

‘Miss Warren, you are mistaken. I have no secret.’

Minnie looked at me through wild impatient locks. ‘For heaven’s sake, what else would you call it? Fraud, perhaps? You come down to Melbourne alone, from somewhere in the depths of the bush. You have been a governess with a family. You had to leave suddenly for no clear reason. My brother-in-law finds you wandering in the middle of the night on the banks of a wild river. Suddenly the governess is a widow. And suddenly my brother-in-law is a father-to-be.’

The story was so trite, so obvious. The cheapest of tricks. Raw shame rose in me, tingled in my cheeks. ‘Miss Warren, please listen —’

‘Nobody asks questions. They don’t need to. You are an answer to a prayer. My brother-in-law has a mad theory about electric conception. My sister knows it’s mad, yet she believes it. For a while, anyway.’

A faint hope flared in me. ‘She wants the child.’

‘Of course she does. And she’ll get it. As for you, if you say anything about me, you will be cast out. But if you keep quiet, I’ll see to it that you go with the happy family to America.’

‘America?’ Suddenly the country seemed as impossible as the wonderland down the rabbit hole in Matilda’s book.

‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? When this tour is over, that’s where we will all go.’ She yanked back a strand of hair, looked me in the eye. ‘Including Franz Richardson.’

I stopped rubbing. I felt as if I were the naked one. Was there anything that this cunning creature had not seen, did not know?

‘I’ll get you to America,’ she said. ‘That’s all I can do for you, and it’s plenty, believe me. Contrary to what you might hear, none of us little people were born small. So you have time on your side. Lavinia listens to me, and she believes her husband. People believe what they want to believe. But only for so long.’

‘So … she will not keep me? Or the child?’

Minnie shrugged. ‘Not once it starts getting big. Not unless you were governess to a child whose father is the size of the General.’ She sat down on the edge of the tub, dried between her toes. ‘Never mind. You’ll be in America.’

I imagined pushing her back into the tub, holding her under the water, feeling her grasp and claw like her brother-in-law in the Yarra Yarra.

‘You’d better go down now. We mustn’t keep my sister waiting. Remember what I said. We’ll be good friends and keep each other’s secrets, won’t we?’

I nodded. I could find no words, no actions. The roses were suffocating me. I turned, fled the room.