The last letter, to Mike, was dashed off at breakneck speed with spelling thrown to the winds. Good old Mike knew he was no hand with a bloody pen. Dear Mike. By Jeez that check is a bobbydazzler all rite. The rest is of no special interest except perhaps the last sentence : Well Mike meet me any day you say in the City do you know the Post Office Hotel in Burke Street? We could have a beer and fix a date for Q’land? I have wrote to your Unkle re turning in the job at Lake V. and all in order there so you name the day. Albert.
15
In the morning of Sunday the twenty-second of March, Appleyard College presented the usual scene of bustling preparation as the boarders arrayed themselves for church-going in Woodend. Deliberately cut off nowadays from unnecessary contacts with the outside world, the household had remained ignorant throughout the long boring Sunday of the shocking news that would have set every tongue in the place wagging, rules or no rules. There were no Sunday newspapers and dinner was consumed while the charred timbers of the Lumleys’ hotel lay smouldering in pale autumn sunshine. Constable Bumpher had actually taken Sunday off for a day’s fishing at Kyneton, gleefully returning at midnight with a solitary blackfish to be grilled for Monday morning’s breakfast: a meal cruelly interrupted by the arrival of young Jim with requests for information from the Melbourne papers, the dramatic death of the obscure little governess immediately linked up with the almost defunct College Mystery in the journalist mind.
The staff at the College was shorthanded that Sunday and Mademoiselle and Miss Buck had both been called into action. Although it was Minnie’s day off, the place was all anyhow with Miss Lumley clearing out like that yesterday afternoon and the good-natured housemaid had remained on duty. Rubbing up the table silver in the pantry she saw, through the narrow window, the two governesses marshalling the gloved and hatted girls into the waiting wagonettes, and presently Tom with Alice and Cook in the buggy. Minnie had just come through the baize door leading into the hall when to her surprise she saw the Headmistress almost running downstairs carrying what looked like a small basket in one hand. At sight of the housemaid she stopped, hanging on to the stair rail, Minnie thought, as if she were feeling giddy, and beckoned her over. ‘Minnie! Surely this is your Sunday off?’
‘It don’t matter, Ma’am,’ Minnie said. ‘We’re all behind this morning – after yesterday.’
‘Come into the study for a moment. Is Alice on duty?’
‘No Ma’am, Tom took her and Cook into church in the buggy. Did you want her for anything?’
‘On the contrary. You look tired, Minnie. Why don’t you go and lie down?’ (And there was poor Tom with not a tooth in his head since Thursday and never a word of sympathy.) ‘I’ll lay my tables first. Besides, somebody might call.’
‘Exactly. I was about to tell you that I am expecting Mr Cosgrove some time this morning. Miss Sara’s guardian. I can see him through the window when he arrives and can easily answer the door myself.’
‘Well, Ma’am, it don’t seem right,’ Minnie said wavering, as a delicious little shoot of pain ran through her stomach.
‘You’re a good reliable girl, Minnie. You shall have five pounds on your wedding day. Now do as I say and leave me. I have some business letters to attend to before Mr Cosgrove comes.’
‘And Laws, Tom,’ said Minnie that night, ‘the old girl looked something awful – white as chalk and breathing like a steam engine. Five pound? You could have knocked me down with a feather.’
‘Glory be – wonders will never cease,’ Tom said, putting his arm round her waist with a smacking kiss. He was right. They never will.
As soon as Mademoiselle had returned from church and removed her hat and veil she applied a soupçon of colourless face powder and lipsalve and presented herself at the study door. It was then nearly one o’clock. As usual nowadays it was locked. ‘Come in, Mam’selle. What is it?’
‘Might I have a few words with you, Madame, before déjeuner? A propos de Sara Waybourne?’ Although the governess was aware that Sara was anything but a favourite with the Head, she was unprepared for the expression that creased the older woman’s face like an evil wind. ‘What about Sara Waybourne?’ The pebble eyes were alert, watchful – almost, Dianne decided afterwards, as if she were afraid of what I was going to say. ‘I had better tell you, Mam’selle. You are wasting my time and your own. Sara Waybourne left here this morning with her guardian.’
The governess let fly an irrepressible, ‘Oh, no! No! When I saw her yesterday the poor child was not fit to take a journey. Actually, Madame, it is of Sara’s health that I wished to speak.’
‘She appeared well enough this morning.’
‘Ah, the pauvre enfant . . .’
The Head eyed her sharply. ‘A trouble maker. From the very first.’ ‘An orphan,’ Mademoiselle said boldly. ‘One must for those lonely ones make the excuses.’
‘In fact, I doubt whether I shall accept her here for another term. However, that can be dealt with later. Mr Cosgrove was insistent on taking the child with him there and then. It was most inconvenient but I had no choice in the matter.’
‘You surprise me,’ Mademoiselle said. ‘Mr Cosgrove is a charming man with the perfect manners.’
‘Men, Mam’selle, are often inconsiderate in such things. As you will shortly be finding out for yourself.’ The thin humourless laugh belied the unchanging watchful eyes.
‘Sara’s things,’ Dianne said, rising. ‘I regret that I was not here to help her pack.’
‘I myself helped Sara to put a few things she specially wanted in her little covered basket. Mr Cosgrove was waiting downstairs in a hurry to get away – he had a cab or a carriage ordered.’
‘We may have passed them on the way home from church. I wish very much that I had seen them and waved goodbye.’
‘You are sentimental, Mam’selle – unlike most of your race. However, there it is – the child has gone.’ Still the governess lingered at the door. She was no longer afraid of the woman whose crackling Sunday taffeta disguised an ageing body in aching need of rest, hot water bottles, the small feminine humanities.
‘Is there anything else you wish to say, Mam’selle?’ Recalling an elegant little grandmother reclining for two hours every afternoon on a chaise longue, Dianne, greatly daring, enquired if Madame would perhaps consider asking the good Doctor McKenzie for a little something for herself? There had been much fatigue . . . the early autumn . . .
‘Thank you. . . . No. I have always been an indifferent sleeper. What time is it? I forgot to wind my clock last night.’
‘Ten minutes to one, Madame.’
‘I shall not be coming in to luncheon. Kindly tell them not to lay a place for me.’
‘Nor for Sara,’ Mademoiselle unaccountably said.
‘Nor for Sara. Is that rouge I see on your cheek, Mam’-selle?’
‘Powder, Mrs Appleyard. I find it becoming.’
As soon as the impertinent hussy had left the room the Headmistress rose and bent over the cupboard behind the desk. Her hand was trembling so badly she could hardly open the little door. She kicked at it savagely with the rounded toe of her black kid slipper. It flew open and a small covered basket fell out on to the floor.
The Headmistress remained in her private rooms for the rest of the day and retired early to bed. On the following morning it was Irish Tom’s melancholy pleasure – there being certain warmhearted persons who find some consolation in being first with the worst – to deliver to Mrs Appleyard in person the newspapers filled with lurid accounts of the Lumley tragedy. Somewhat to Tom’s disappointment the news had been received at Headquarters in stony silence with a peremptory ‘Hand it to me!’ Whereas in the kitchen regions there had been a dramatic throwing of aprons over horrified heads and shrill incredulous cries that such a thing could happen only two days after Miss Lumley and her brother had been actually here in this very house: which somehow underlined and intensified the dreadful thing and made the flames nearer and more real.