BELLE

Sweet Wattle Creek, 1931

Home.

Belle, tired and overwrought, felt as if the ground was moving beneath her feet. Violet had hold of her hands now, squeezing them in sympathy or emotion. Her eyes were a very clear light blue, and Belle couldn’t seem to look away.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here for my aunt’s funeral,’ she heard herself saying, her voice odd and stilted. ‘I-I wasn’t aware she had died.’

Violet’s smile wavered and her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. ‘But, Belle,’ she blurted out. ‘Surely you know Martha wasn’t your aunt. She was your mother!’

‘I know … but she gave me away when I was a baby so I don’t remember —’

‘You weren’t a baby. You were four years old.’

Outside Belle was aware of Frank’s boots drawing nearer. ‘Generator won’t start,’ he said in disgust. He frowned when no one answered him, looking sharply from one to the other as if he could read minds. ‘What is it?’

Jo pulled a face. ‘Mum’s just dropped a bombshell. I think.’

Violet had put a hand to her mouth and was staring at Belle with those big blue eyes. For a moment Belle wondered whether it was all an act and Violet had done it on purpose, but then the older woman reached out to her again with such a pained expression that she dismissed her doubts. ‘I’m sorry, Belle.’

Belle managed to find her voice. ‘I knew Martha was my mother. But since only recently, when my father … I mean Henry, he found a birth certificate. My birth certificate.’

Jo’s eyes widened in astonishment. ‘No one told you?’

‘I believed my mother was Iris and my father Rory. They never told me. It was rather a shock.’

It was a shock yes, but since Rory’s death she’d thought a lot about it and had constructed her own version of events. She was a baby and Martha didn’t want her, or Rory did, but whatever the reason she was given away shortly after birth. To hear she wasn’t a baby but a four-year-old child threw her creation into chaos. Somehow this seemed much worse. As if after four years Martha had decided she wasn’t good enough to keep.

She’d had four years in another life she didn’t remember!

Violet was looking even more contrite. ‘Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. When Martha told me she had taken you to stay with her brother and his wife, I thought it was just for a little holiday. Everyone did. Rory had lost a child, you see. Poppy, that was her name. Scarlet fever. Very sad. Martha said she was going to offer them her condolences. Then when you didn’t come back I tried asking her why but all she’d say was that it was for the best. Eventually she refused to answer me. Martha was very good at keeping secrets.’

‘Didn’t you ask Mr Ambrose?’ Jo demanded.

Violet shook her head in disgust. ‘He was a drunkard. I couldn’t get any sense out of him.’ She turned back to Belle and squeezed her hands again. ‘My dear, Martha loved you. If she sent you off to Rory and Iris then she must’ve had a good reason.’

Belle swallowed. Poppy. She remembered her mother’s … Iris’s words as she lay in the hospital bed. Poor Iris. Could Martha really have given her up to replace a dead child? She felt tears stinging her eyes but held them back. There had been enough tears shed recently. Violet Davies was right. Martha must have had her reasons and Belle’s life had been a good one up until the past few weeks. She had been very lucky in her parents and her home, and to begin believing she was abandoned and hard done by was ridiculous.

The kerosene lamp flickered in a draft from the open door. It seemed to break whatever spell she was under, and Belle stepped back, making Violet let go of her hands. They had begun to tingle from the other woman’s frantic grip.

‘This was a hotel, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘The Grand? My father … Rory said his father was a publican.’ I think he was ashamed. But she didn’t say that. She already knew she sounded as if she considered herself a cut above, but a hotel was quite beyond her experience. The truth was she’d never been inside a working man’s hotel. Belle had only been to stylish places like the Windsor, or the classy restaurants frequented by the Bartholomews and their friends. The idea of entering one of the smoky public houses set on street corners in St Kilda, or anywhere else, had never occurred to her.

It wasn’t her world.

Violet was explaining. ‘Martha let the licence go during the war. She still lived here though. This was her home. When she died in June last year it was left empty and travellers moved in.’

Violet exchanged a look with her children, the sort that families do, as if there was more to the story and it had often been discussed between them.

‘Was anyone with her when she died?’

Violet forced a smile. ‘Don’t worry about that now, my dear.’

Another secret. Belle knew she should insist on knowing every last thing about Martha’s life and her death, but she was tired. She didn’t want to ask more questions, not if she couldn’t have the answers, and she was beginning to think there were details Violet was not going to tell her. Not without a struggle anyway.

Jo put the brush and pan carefully on the bench, and at the same time gave Belle a doubtful look. ‘You don’t really want to stay here tonight, do you, Belle? Come back to Morwenstow with us.’

She wavered. She could do that, couldn’t she? She could go back with them to what was probably a very nice bed and in the morning she could catch the train back to Melbourne and Henry and return once more to a comfortable life. She could do that, but if she did then she would never know the whole truth. Questions would remain unanswered, and she’d spend the rest of her life wondering.

‘Thank you but I want to stay,’ she said firmly, as if her answer had never been in doubt. ‘This is all very new to me and I’m still coming to terms with it. I think staying will help. Thank you so much for tidying up and … and cleaning. I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble, Mrs Davies … Miss Davies …’

Frank cleared his throat and Jo smiled without humour. Violet was the one to answer her, lying through her teeth, Belle thought wryly. ‘Of course it was no trouble, my dear. Now, we haven’t been able to prepare all the rooms, but the bedroom that used to be Martha’s has fresh sheets and is nice. It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. The tank still has some water in it, and if you turn on the tap there it’ll run through. And there’s food in the larder, tea and milk, so you’ll have plenty to keep you going. We’ll drop in to see you in the morning. Oh!’ Again that hand over the mouth. ‘I forgot. Stan has an appointment with Doctor Campbell.’

‘My father is an invalid,’ Jo explained. ‘He was gassed in the war.’ She and Frank exchanged another of those glances, and Belle could see they were deciding which of them would draw the short straw. ‘I’ll come by,’ Jo said when her brother didn’t appear to be about to offer.

Belle wanted to tell them not to bother but that would be rude after all they’d done. She was a stranger and it was only because of Martha that they were here at all. Anyway, she’d be gone soon enough.

‘Thank you,’ she said, knowing it sounded awkward. ‘Thank you for everything.’

The awkwardness amongst them increased and she was glad when they began to move towards the door. ‘Oh,’ Violet turned just as they were about to close it. ‘I forgot to tell you, Aneas Thomas has all of Martha’s personal papers. He’ll be able to explain anything you want to know.’

Aneas Thomas, she remembered, was Martha’s solicitor. ‘I’ll see him tomorrow, then.’

‘We should go,’ Jo said, taking her mother’s arm in a firm grip. ‘Belle will be all right now, won’t you? I really think she wants to be alone, Mum.’

Violet murmured, ‘Of course,’ her blue eyes still anxious. And then finally they were gone, their voices fading in the yard and the gate creaking shut. Their car started up but a moment later someone was jogging back to the door.

Frank handed her the suitcase she’d left in his cart. ‘You’ll need this,’ he said.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Lock the doors. You’ll be quite safe,’ he said, with that intent look that made her so uncomfortable. She thought he might say more, but he only nodded and retreated once again into the darkness. This time she heard the car moving away followed by the clip clop of horses’ hooves, until there was nothing but complete silence.

Belle stood with the suitcase in her hand and told herself it was good to be alone. Alone in the hotel that had been her mother’s and Rory’s when they were children. The hotel she had been born in? Perhaps. Certainly she had lived here for four years of her life. She must have run through the rooms and laughed and cried. Martha and Nathan Ambrose had been here, they had been her parents for those first four years of her life, and then they had taken her to Melbourne and handed her over to Rory and Iris, and never come back.

Belle picked up the lamp in her other hand and opened the door from the kitchen into the remainder of the building. There was a space here, almost like a vestibule, with another door to her left, and a staircase rising to a landing in front of her. She took the left-hand door and found herself in another room. It was full: furniture and ornaments and other items she couldn’t recognise in the half-dark. There were jumbled piles in corners and against the walls, reaching upwards and outwards, almost to where she was standing.

Belle decided it was probably better to do further exploring in daylight.

Violet had said that Martha’s room was at the top of the stairs, on the right. The bare staircase creaked under her shoes. As she reached the landing and turned to mount the final flight, the shadows fled before her lamp and above her she could see a passage with closed doors on either side. And at the far end there was one other door.

Unexpectedly Belle was cold. It was a clamminess that seemed to come from within, despite the captured heat inside the building. She couldn’t move, and stood anchored to the spot. She found that her eyes were fixed on the door at the very end of the passage. It had a small brass knob and she felt as if it might move, turn, and something come out. Something she didn’t remember but which terrified her.

What she was feeling was primal. A sensation without reason. But at least it was brief.

The fear or terror or whatever it had been was already draining out of her. Her head ached. A memory? Or simply being overwrought and over-tired? She turned to Martha’s bedroom and with trembling fingers twisted the porcelain knob and pushed the door open.

The lamp light showed it to be a large room with pale-coloured walls and two sash windows. The bed was one of those old-fashioned high ones, and covered in a quilt made of green-and-pink-patterned squares. Belle didn’t know what she had been expecting, but this felt peaceful and pleasant. She set the lamp aside and pushed herself up so she was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Her feet didn’t touch the wooden planks of the floor.

She looked about her. There were about half a dozen small framed paintings on the walls. Landscapes, she thought, although it was difficult to see. A heavy chest of drawers was against one wall, with a wardrobe, and a Victorian dressing table with a mirror in a barleycorn frame. A candle sat on the dressing table, ready to be lit. The fireplace was filled with pine cones in a basket and there was a colourful rag rug on the floor.

Were these all Martha’s belongings or had Violet brought them with her? What had The Grand been like when Martha died? From the piles of rubbish she’d seen in the room downstairs Belle had a sinking feeling that things had been bad. She would ask Jo tomorrow. Jo seemed the sort to tell the truth rather than spare her feelings.

She began to unpack her few belongings, hanging up the spare blouse in the wardrobe, and placing her shoes beneath it. Her brush and comb she set on the dressing table, with her soap, toothbrush and dental paste, Ponds cleansing cream, and her few items of makeup. Her underwear she slipped into a drawer.

The others were all empty. There was nothing left here of her mother, of Martha. Not even a stoppered bottle which had once held perfume.

Her pyjamas felt comfortingly familiar and the scent clinging to them reminded her of Annat Street. She breathed in deeply and wished she was home. And then she reminded herself that she had no home. Although that wasn’t quite true, was it? She had The Grand.

Belle thought about brushing the dust out of her hair and then wondered whether she could be bothered going back downstairs and getting something to eat. Violet had promised there was food. But now it was just too much effort to leave the bedroom, and the thought of seeing that door again made her queasy.

There was a basin and jug with cold water in it. She poured the water and splashed it over her face, eyeing the Ponds cleansing cream and deciding against it. She was too tired.

What was Henry doing? Was he thinking of her? More likely he was out dining with his important client, putting on a good show. Belle moved restlessly. Thinking of Henry wasn’t as comforting as she’d hoped and instead her thoughts turned once more to the mystery of Martha and Nathan Ambrose.

Why had they given her up? If she had been meant as a replacement for Poppy then why hadn’t they visited? It was almost as if all communications had been cut between brother and sister, not something you’d expect after such an act of kindness. If that was indeed what it was.

The lamp flickered and Belle turned it out and went to the window. It had been opened for the breeze and she left it that way. The night sky was clear and starry, and it seemed different. Wider and brighter and quite beautiful. Belle found she was spellbound as she leaned over the sill, looking up.

Why hadn’t Rory spoken of The Grand? Was he really so ashamed of his past?

So many questions. Belle knew they would have to wait until the morning when she spoke with Aneas Thomas. And for that she needed a good night’s sleep.

* * *

Belle opened her eyes. She felt disorientated. It was still dark and it took a little while for her vision to adjust. The air had cooled in the room and she had been deeply asleep, but something had woken her.

An image of the door at the end of the passage, the one with the brass handle, came immediately to mind. As if it had been waiting to spring on her.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she told herself sharply. Her voice seemed very loud and she was about to get up and light the candle when a flickering glow came through the uncurtained window.

A light. It happened again and then seemed to shift away, jerkily, as if someone was walking and carrying a lantern at the same time.

She remembered Frank’s talk of travellers and the constable seeing them off. Had they come back? Perhaps, she thought, they were out there somewhere in the dark, trying to get inside. As a woman alone she was vulnerable.

Carefully, she climbed out of the bed and tiptoed over to the window. Her toes curled on the bare floorboards as she concentrated on the view below her.

This bedroom faced the side of the hotel away from the road, and there were paddocks stretching towards a distant line of trees. It wasn’t as dark as she’d thought because of the stars, but the mysterious light seemed to have gone. And yet … she had the strangest sensation that someone was out in the darkness, watching her.

Shivering, she wrapped her arms about herself. She felt no desire to go outside, alone, and hunt down whoever it was. The Grand enclosed her. It was hers, she was home, and somehow she felt ridiculously safe. Tomorrow would be soon enough to face whatever surprises and revelations awaited her beyond its strong walls.