Both of these men were sent to New South Wales, but Sumper was not destined to be transported to a gold mine. At first he was well fed, and the English puddings increased his optimism, but early one morning two soldiers escorted him to a blind carriage and rode with him to a wharf somewhere west of London Bridge. Here he was locked in a brig aboard a German trawler and it was only then, at the moment of his banishment, when he was given back the ledger, that he accepted everything was lost.
Catherine
IN THE MORNING I returned all Henry’s surviving notebooks to Lowndes Square and Crofty, in taking delivery, bestowed on me the most lovely smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Would you like some tea?”
I was so relieved to be forgiven.
“Yes please,” I said. Surely he would permit me to keep the final volume one more day.
I waited, swivelling on my chair, looking out the window at the trees.
“No milk,” he said. “Do you mind?”
“Perfect,” I said, as he placed a very lovely (uncharacteristically restrained) Clarice Cliff cup and saucer on the desk beside me. “I had the most awful dusty tea for breakfast.”
Why had I said that? Surely I wasn’t going to tell him I had spent the night in a room above a pub? Then it appears I was. Then I had.
“For God’s sake, why?”
“I wanted to finish reading.”
“Which pub?” His questioning gaze embarrassed me.
“The Rose and Crown.”
“The Youngs’ place with all the sofas in the bar? Up the road?”
I thought, he can’t know that Matthew and I slept there for the first time, but men will tell each other the strangest things, so perhaps he did. I tried to sip my tea but the triangular deco handle, while very beautiful, was difficult to grasp when hot.
“I was trying to get the notebooks finished. Actually, I still have one to go.”
I could see the pity in his eyes. I thought, he will let me keep the book.
“Well, I am not going to lock them up, my love. You can read them whenever you wish, in a lot nicer environment than the Rose and Crown.”
“Actually,” I said, “I do think it would be wise to put them on restricted.”
“You do, do you?” He laughed, rather indignantly I thought.
“Eric, I put an awful lot of make-up on, but I do think the scratch still shows, don’t you?” I did not say, Amanda Snyde has been inside my house, although of course she had.
“You mean I should put them on restricted so your assistant cannot read them too.”
“I’m rather afraid they will set her off again.”
I had misjudged him totally. He was incredulous.
“My darling, of course they cannot be locked up. I couldn’t justify that to anyone. You know Miss Snyde is very sorry. There was a mess-up at Boots, apparently. It was not her fault at all. Now she has her pills again, she’s fine. She’s mortified by what happened.”
I thought, she takes pills for her enthusiasm?
“Eric, please, have you read these notebooks?”
In other circumstances I would have enjoyed that impish smile. Now it scared me.
“Keep reading. It gets better.” So saying he whisked all my notebooks from the room. I followed him, but I knew where he was going anyway. In future I would have to take that same staircase, at the top of which I would find myself at the mercy of the dry and secret little Annie Heller who had never liked me, and now would like me less. I had lost my private right to Henry Brandling. I would have to sign him out and sign him in.
The lapsang souchong was still too hot. The solid triangular handle offered no purchase. The treasure was about to slip between my fingers.
ANNIE HELLER WAS A tiny bad-tempered insect of a thing, not at all a scholar, with no technical expertise, with no legitimate institutional power except—she was the one who arranged for the manuscripts to be scanned. I suspected she was exceptionally nice to Crofty, for when he spoke of the empty Victorian sitting room behind her high librarian’s desk, he called it a “very pleasant place.” Why not? It must have been, for him. Even in winter, even in the silence, he was spared the animus the rest of us could feel, even when we had no visual contact with its source.
Annie was unbelievably, habitually rude. Only at the Swinburne could she have kept her job.
We all tried to suck up, and of course she despised us for it. Knowing this I still smiled at her when I came to talk about the Brandling Catalogue. I told her that her hair looked nice, which was far too big a lie. I asked, please, for a form to withdraw one of the manuscripts Mr. Croft had just given her.
As usual she made me wait a long time for an answer. Finally she said she would do that the “very moment” they had been catalogued.
I asked her when might that be.
“Oh, not long—a day or two.”
When she did look up I knew she was lying. I waited until she was more or less compelled to look at me.
“Might I perhaps read it here, in the reading room?” I asked. It should not have even been a question. I was a senior conservator.
“I’m afraid they are needed for cataloguing.”
“I do not believe that Mr. Croft intended I be denied the material,” I said, thus somehow forcing her to return to pecking on her keyboard. Her task could not have been demanding for she was able to speak to me between keystrokes.
“You know as well as I do, Miss Gehrig, Mr. Croft would not wish me to go against the rules.”
“Perhaps you could ring him up?”
So then the keyboard was pushed aside. The head came up. The tiny wire spectacles were removed.
“Miss Gehrig, I do know what the Swinburne regulations are without speaking to Mr. Croft and, in any case, once the manuscripts have been catalogued they will go to be scanned, and then, if you wish, you can view them on your computer.”
“So it is definitely not possible for me to read one of them now?”
“Miss Gehrig, perhaps I don’t appear to be busy?”
“Even if there is an important fund-raising project that will now be delayed?”
“That is correct, yes.”
“Thank you, Miss Heller.”
“You are very welcome, Miss Gehrig. I don’t imagine it will be more than a week.”
I descended the stairs as quietly as I dared and travelled back to Olympia in the stinky bus. I was in a vile, vile mood, angry with myself for my own incompetence, angry I had lost Henry, furious with Crofty for not supporting me. When I found Amanda ensconced in my studio it seemed I had lost all the power I had ever had.
“Good morning Amanda,” I said.
“Miss Gehrig, I am so sorry,” she said, but I could not trust her. I would not engage her eyes.
“It’s past,” I said. “The swan is more important than either of us.”
She had been with Angus. He had dressed her. She wore a crumpled white shirt whose single button was sewn with bright red thread. She looked gorgeous, carrying the rumpled cotton the way only the very beautiful can do. She had a new sort of sexual confidence that made me feel dry and wizened.
By this time we had the mechanism assembled on a steel work bench, and the glass rods were all clean, laid on the bright new back plates, their end caps secured by a modern reversible adhesive. As soon as we wound the clockwork, the rods would slowly spin.
The track was in place and the little fish could be connected as soon as this morning, an operation as ultimately simple as hooking an earring in one’s lobe.
We were perhaps a month from the very end, but very close to a dress rehearsal for the nobs. Once the neck was clad with rings, once the beak was properly attached, we would do a run-through and then Crofty could show his benefactors the wonder. Of course he already knew exactly what he had. Even before its restoration he had foreseen the swan’s hypnotic, eerie being. I am certain that he had laid a more complicated set of bets than I could ever hope to know.