In the morning, after breakfast, we visited the Levinys. I was longing to talk to Drucilla. Had her feelings towards SP changed? Was she still angry, or was she beginning to miss him? But what with all those children and the important business of morning tea, we managed only a dozen words and none of them were about Saddington Plush. Never mind, I told myself. Though I wanted to know if there was any hope for SP, there was no hurry. We were staying in Castlemaine for two whole weeks.
After lunch, Connie was going off for her first lesson with Madame Fodor. Poppy planned to accompany her. Helen was busy with a meeting of her sewing circle, and Mr Petrov always rested in the afternoon. What was I going to do?
“Do you need to rest too, Mr Savinov?” asked Harold.
“Me? Not at all. I am enjoying the country air. I find it most invigorating.”
“Then perhaps I could take you and Verity for a drive.”
“Why don’t you go out to Paulina’s farm?” said Hannah, coming into the room. “We need apples and pears, and a few more bottles of wine.”
“What do you say?”
“I say it would be delightful,” said Papa.
The farm was at Barker’s Creek, only ten minutes or so out of Castlemaine. We turned off the Bendigo road onto a smaller one lined with orchards and rows of vines. All the leaves were turning yellow and gold and the rosebushes planted at the end of each row were covered in bright red hips.
Harold pulled up the horse and the buggy slowed to a halt. “We’re here.”
We got out in front of a large sign at the entrance. It read:
BLUMBERG PLEASURE GARDENS – WINES, PLANTS, FRUIT AND FLOWERS
Up ahead was a farmhouse surrounded by gardens and orchards.
“Ah!” said Papa, stopping still and looking delightedly around him. “What peace.”
“Peace,” I echoed. Yes, he was right. The honey-coloured stone walls, the trees with their autumn leaves, the brick paths and garden beds seemed to breathe serenity. Bees hummed over the flowers and herbs; brown butterflies chased each other in and out of the sunlight. Everything was warm and mellow in the afternoon light.
Papa took a couple of deep breaths and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were moist. Was Papa crying? I reached for his hand.
“Papa, what has upset you?”
“Nothing, Veroschka,” he said, bending down and kissing my cheek. “Your papa is not upset. How could I be, in such a place?” He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “I am growing sentimental in my old age. You see, I am reminded of my grandmother’s farm.”
Papa had never mentioned a farm before. In fact, he’d hardly talked to me about his childhood in Russia at all. He seemed such a citified gentleman, and I tried to imagine him as a little boy walking up such a path as this. He squeezed my hand. “Happy memories, chérie. So long ago …”
Harold, who’d been tactfully looking the other way, now gestured for us to climb the front steps onto the verandah. It was screened by a twining grapevine, and only when we reached the top of the steps did we see the elderly gentleman sitting on a bench in the shade. A collie dog, old like its owner, sat next to him. The pair of them got up on stiff legs.
“Ah, Harold!” said the old man, walking forwards using a stick. He launched into a flood of greetings but his accent was so thick and strange that I only understood one word in ten.
However, Papa understood. He greeted the old fellow in German (Papa, being a man of the world, spoke German, Polish, French, Russian and English) and in a trice the two of them were chatting away like old friends.
“Come with me,” whispered Harold, and we left them on the bench in the shade.
We went together into the house. Halfway down the hall, I sniffed. A delicious smell composed of honey, cinnamon and nutmeg, new-baked bread and buttery cake led us by our noses to the kitchen. Standing at the table, a middle-aged woman with a flushed, pretty face was beating eggwhites in a copper bowl. She looked up and her blue eyes widened with delight.
“Harold, my boy, how good to see you again!” She put down her whisk and hugged him. She turned to me. “You must be the young lady Hannah was telling me about. I am Paulina Dohnt. Welcome to Blumberg. It means ‘flower hill’. It was the name of our village in the old country.”
“I brought Verity’s father as well,” said Harold. “He’s sitting on the verandah with your father.”
“Then I will make some tea for us. I have just baked a cake.”
“When have you not just baked a cake?” said Harold, and Paulina laughed. “Hannah sent us to pick up some wine, Paulina. May we go and get it?”
“Yes, go ahead. You know the way.”
Harold took me through a courtyard towards a building completely covered in ivy. All around it was a strong, fruity, yeasty smell. The door was open and a bright strip of sunlight lay across the brick floor. As we walked inside, the smell became sharper, vinegary, and almost overpowering. One side of the room was lined with wooden barrels, and a man with his back to us was doing something to a tap.
“Stay where you are for a minute, Verity,” said Harold in a low voice, and then he strode forwards, making a lot of noise with his boots on the flagged stone floor.
“Hermann!” he called. “It’s me – Harold.”
The man lurched to his feet and turned around. I gasped. I couldn’t stop myself, but at least I didn’t cry out. You see, the whole right side of Hermann’s face was a welter of old scars and his eye had disappeared into a pucker of skin. The poor man must have met with some terrible accident.
“Hermann, it’s good to see you. How are you?”
His reply was so soft I couldn’t hear it.
“Hannah sent me to get some wine from you. And some apples and pears as well.”
Hermann gestured towards a box on the floor and mumbled something in a hoarse whisper. His eyes flicked towards me.
“This is Miss Verity, Hermann. She’s visiting Uncle Nicholas. Would you like to meet her?”
I saw the hesitation. It must have been hard to have strangers looking at him, but after a few seconds the old man hobbled forwards, smiling. At least, he meant to smile, but all his damaged face could manage was twisted lips and bared teeth. He held out his hand. I winced inwardly. Hermann’s hand, too, was horribly scarred and misshapen, but I made myself take it in mine. It was bad enough, I thought, to be so disfigured and scarred. I must not make it any worse by shying away from him.
“From town?” he asked.
“Melbourne? Yes, I live in Melbourne,” I said. “St Kilda, by the sea.”
“The sea?”
“Yes. Do you like the sea?”
I was only trying to make conversation but he seemed confused by my question. An odd, hunted look appeared on his face.
“Busy,” he said, gesturing to the wine barrels.
“Yes, we can see that,” said Harold, picking up the box of bottles. “Will you come and have tea with us? Paulina’s made a cake.”
“Busy.” Shaking his head, Hermann backed into the shadows.
On our way back to join the others, Harold answered my questions before I asked them. “His name is Hermann Schroeder. He’s some kind of cousin, I think. I believe he fell into a fire.”
That explained the terrible scarring. I sighed. “Did I upset him, do you think, asking questions? I’m sorry if I did. Now he will miss out on afternoon tea.”
“You didn’t upset him, Verity. After the accident, he lost his memory. And there is always plenty of cake at Blumberg.”
Harold was right. There was gingerbread, apple slice and spiced plum cake with syrup and rich cream.
“This cake,” I said. “It’s exactly like one that Hannah made. Though …” I had to be honest, and Hannah wasn’t here to be offended. “Yours is even better.”
Paulina laughed. “That’s because she got the recipe from me. She is my sister-in-law. She was married to my brother Gottfried – God rest his soul. Ah, Hermann.”
The old man appeared around the corner of the verandah carrying a large wicker basket full of fruit.
“Forgot,” he said.
“So I did. Thank you, Hermann.” Harold stood up and took the basket from him. “Hermann, this gentleman is Verity’s father, Mr Savinov.”
Papa stood up, held out his hand and greeted Hermann in German. That hunted expression reappeared on Hermann’s face. His eyes flicked towards Paulina and Mr Dohnt and then back to Papa. He seemed almost panic-stricken.
“Much … to do,” he whispered, and without shaking Papa’s hand, he hobbled away.
“Our Hermann, he is very shy,” said Paulina.
That seemed to mark the end of our afternoon tea. We said our goodbyes, took our wine and fruit and returned to the phaeton. On the journey home, I noticed that Papa seemed tired but very happy. A smile kept playing at the corners of his mouth and twitching his moustache.
“There is a German word, my child – Gemütlichkeit. I think it may not translate into English, for the English they have no idea of this thing. It means cosy, unhurried, peaceful, at home. Good company, friends …” He stroked my hand. “There at Blumberg …”
“Gemütlichkeit,” I said.
He laughed. “I must teach Poppy that word. She would enjoy it, no?”
In the happy days that followed there were picnics in the Botanical Gardens, visits with Drucilla, a shopping expedition to Bendigo (the nearest large town), and walks around Castlemaine with Harold. We strolled along, arm in arm, sometimes talking but often in companionable silence. With some special people, I thought, you can just skip the stage of polite acquaintanceship by becoming friends straightaway. I was beginning to have a few second thoughts about politeness, anyway. Sometimes those correct manners felt like wearing a stiff, starchy collar.
Harold’s arrival had made both Helen and Mr Petrov happier, and when we were invited to a family dinner at the Levinys’, to my surprise Mr Petrov said he felt well enough to go.
The Levinys were not only musical, but artistic as well. I hadn’t realised that before Mr Leviny was a rich businessman in the colonies, he’d been a famous jeweller and silversmith in Paris and London. That explained Mrs Leviny’s magnificent bracelet.
Mr Petrov coaxed Mr Leviny into showing us some of his designs.
“You made them?” asked Poppy, looking at the drawings with wide eyes. “Out of silver an’ gold?” She was most impressed when he said that he had. She pointed to an especially ornate design. “What’s that for?”
“To look at, mainly. We call that a standing presentation cup,” said Mr Leviny.
“It’s an eggcup,” said Poppy, and laughed at her own joke. Mr Leviny had in fact drawn a very large egg on a stand, decorated at the base with tiny Australian animals.
“A splendid piece, Ernö,” said Papa. “The egg, I take it, is an emu’s egg?”
Mr Leviny nodded and he put his folio of drawings away. Rather sadly, I thought. For all he enjoyed his life as a gentleman here in Castlemaine, I wondered if perhaps sometimes he missed creating beautiful things.
The one small cloud on my horizon was Della Parker. Strange, isn’t it? I’d gone from worrying that Della was going to hurt me or Papa to being anxious about her. I was relieved when, a week after my conversation with Papa, he showed me a letter he’d received in the morning’s mail. It was addressed in SP’s sprawling curly script.
“SP has seen Della Parker. He took her to lunch at the Ladies’ Annexe of the Antechinus Club and they had a most interesting conversation. Here, read what he says.”
Miss Parker was very polite and seemed entirely rational. She told me a great deal about herself. She has indeed had a most difficult life, beginning with her mother’s death and then many years in orphanages and foster homes. Her most fervent desire seems to be for some family connection and to that end, she seeks an interview with you and Verity.
I scanned the letter to the end. “SP is convinced that she truly believes Waldo Parker is her father. Will we meet her?”
“I have decided – yes. She has some urgent business to attend to, but …” Papa took the letter from me and referred to SP’s scrawl. “She will be back in Melbourne by the end of the month. She invites us to visit her at her hotel. This is good, no?”
“Very good, Papa.”
“And we shall see if …” His hands trembled slightly as he re-folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. “We shall see if she looks like your mother.”