‘I daresay she would! Although any reference from myself, with a grain of truth in it, would be unlikely to gain her a position!’ Her hand struck the blotting pad with such force that it nearly jumped off the desk, at which Mr Lumley jumped, too. ‘I am a truthful woman, Mr Lumley, and if you don’t know it already allow me to tell you that your sister is a bad-tempered, ignorant dunce and the sooner she gets out of this house the better.’ She pulled the bell rope at her elbow, rose from the desk. ‘If you will kindly wait in the hall, one of the maids will bring your sister and you may tell her to start packing her bag at once. If she hurries, you can catch the Melbourne express.’
‘But Mrs Appleyard! I insist on you hearing me out! Surely you want to know my point of view about all this? I mean there are quite a number of people who –’ The door of the study was somehow behind him. Hatless and trembling with suppressed fury Reg stood alone in the hall. Here, in an agony of frustrated oratory and punctured self-esteem, he was obliged to pass the time as best he could, on a highbacked mahogany chair, devising ways and means of retrieving his hat from the study without loss of face.
Within an hour Dora Lumley had succeeded in compressing her meagre stock of clothing and few personal possessions – a Japanese fan, a birthday book, her mother’s garnet ring – into a wicker dress basket, several bags and brown paper parcels, and was seated beside her brother in Hussey’s cab. It is hardly necessary to add that the cab bowled down the drive under the scrutiny of numerous pairs of unseen eyes. Curiosity has its own peculiar means of expression; the spoken word assisted by raised eyebrows, nods, headshakings and the shrugging of shoulders. On the evening of Saturday, the twenty-first, curiosity at Appleyard College was at fever heat. Despite the restrictive rules of silence, a highly sensitized ear would have been aware of a ceaseless gnat-like buzzing on stairs and landings; the wordless hum of female curiosity aroused but as yet unsatisfied. Ever since Miss Lumley and her brother had been seen driving away together late in the afternoon the weird assortment of hastily packed belongings on the box seat had given rise to the wildest speculation. Was the junior governess actually leaving the College for good? And if so, why such haste? It was generally agreed that it was unlike Miss Lumley to miss a chance of a spectacular farewell. The housemaid was implored to repeat what the brother had said on arrival and how long he was left stranded in the hall. And what Miss Lumley had said when informed by Alice that her brother was waiting below with a cab. All very mysterious and in its way serving as comic relief in an otherwise colourless day: Dora Lumley and her impossible brother having been long ago pigeonholed as figures of fun.
The only member of the household to show no interest in Miss Lumley’s departure was Sara Waybourne, who had passed the afternoon in wandering about the grounds with a book. Struck by the child’s increasing pallor, Mademoiselle made up her mind to ‘take the bull by the tail’ and ask Mrs Appleyard to send for Doctor McKenzie. Ever since the scene in the gymnasium Dianne had been conscious of a strange new strength. She was no longer afraid of Mrs Appleyard’s individual wrath, now rendered impotent by the impersonal wrath of Heaven.
There were only five more days left until Wednesday, when the College broke up for the Easter Vacation. After that, Appleyard College would be little more than a bad dream as she lay in her Louis’ arms. Rosamund, glancing across the supper table, saw her sudden smile above a plate of Irish stew and rightly guessed her thoughts. Life at the College without Mam’selle’s endearing presence would be unsupportable. She thought, ‘Why am I here, with all these stupid children?’ and decided to ask her parents to let her go home for good at Easter.
Not only Sara Waybourne, but Mrs Appleyard was in need of Doctor McKenzie’s attention. She had lost a great deal of weight in the past few weeks and the full silk skirts hung loosely about her massive hips. The flaccid cheeks were sometimes pale and sunken, sometimes mottled a dull red and ‘blown up’ as Blanche whispered to Edith, ‘Like a fish left too long in the sun.’ The two girls giggled in the shadow of Aphrodite, watching their Headmistress slowly mounting the staircase from the hall. Halfway towards the first landing the Headmistress caught sight of Minnie coming up from the back stairs with a tray, nicely set out with a lace trimmed cloth and Japanese china. She enquired acidly, ‘Have we an invalid in the house?’
Minnie, unlike Cook and Alice, was never intimidated by Mrs Appleyard. ‘It’s Miss Sara’s supper, Ma’am – Mam’selle asked me to slip up with something, seeing there’s no homework for the young ladies of a Saturday night and the child’s feeling poorly.’
The girl had just reached the door of Sara’s room when Mrs Appleyard, retiring early to her vast bedroom directly above the study, called her back. ‘Kindly tell Miss Sara not to put out her light until she has had a word with me.’
Sara was sitting up in bed with the gas turned very low, her heavy hair unbraided and falling about her narrow shoulders; and looking, Minnie thought, almost pretty, thanks to a fevered flush and dark glittering eyes. ‘See, Miss, I’ve brought you a nice boiled egg on Mam’selle’s special orders. The jelly and cream is something I pinched for you myself off Madam’s dinner tray.’ A thin arm shot out from under the coverlet. ‘Take it away. I won’t touch it.’
‘Now, then, Miss Sara, that’s real baby talk! A great girl of thirteen – isn’t that right?’
‘I don’t know. Even my guardian doesn’t know for certain. Sometimes I feel as if I was hundreds of years old.’
‘You won’t feel that way when you leave school and all the boys are after you – Miss – all you need is a bit of fun.’
‘Fun!’ repeated the child. ‘Fun! Come over here. Close to the bed and I’ll tell you something nobody at the college knows except Miranda, and she promised never never to tell. Minnie! I was brought up in an orphanage. Fun! Sometimes I dream about it even now, when I can’t go to sleep. One day I told them I thought it would be fun to be a lady circus rider on a lovely white horse in a spangled dress. The matron was afraid I was going to run away and shaved my head. I bit her in the arm.’
‘There, Miss. Don’t cry.’ The kind-hearted Minnie was horribly embarrassed. ‘Look, lovey, I’ll leave the tray here on the washstand in case you change your mind. Lor’, that reminds me! Madam said to tell you not to turn out your light till she comes in to see you. Sure you won’t try a bit of the jelly?’
‘Never! Not if I was starving!’ She turned her face to the wall.
In a second-class compartment of the Melbourne train Reg and Dora Lumley had talked without ceasing; the sister now and then dabbing at angry tears with interjections of ‘Monstrous! Oh surely not! You don’t say! How dare she!’ as the wayside stations flew past in the gathering dusk. Already the brother was planning ways and means of extracting the full term’s salary, in Reg’s opinion a matter of extreme urgency. ‘Why, Dora, for all we know the old girl may be bankrupt any day – or getting that way.’
When the train drew in at Spencer Street Station it had been decided that Dora would accompany her brother back to Warragul, there to housekeep for three in the dilapidated cottage of an ageing aunt. ‘In my opinion, Dora, you might do a great deal worse. After all, Aunt Lydia cannot live for ever.’ On which inspiring note they stepped out of the train and boarded a tram to a respectable small hotel in a respectable city street. Dora was filled with admiration for her strongminded capable brother who had even engaged beforehand two cheap single rooms for the night, in the back wing. They were just in time for a late evening meal and after swallowing some cold mutton and strong tea the brother and sister retired exhausted to bed. About three o’clock in the morning an oil lamp, left alight too close to a blowing curtain on the wooden stairs, fell to the floor. The flames began licking up the shabby wallpaper and blistered paintwork. Curls of smoke poured unseen into the street from the staircase window. Within minutes the whole of the back wing was a roaring vault of fire.