When Arnold Wyburd dashed her off, disengaged himself entirely, and stubbed his toe on a caster. Never forgive myself Mrs Hunter a position of trust so many others involved. Poor man. But we don’t love each other Arnold and I am the one to blame I don’t love you but I loved it it is something which had to which you will forget and I shall remember with pleasure. Too foolish of her to suggest that they were only half-absolved. She would always remember his braces, his suspenders, trying to impress an enormity on her. Men are at their most priggish managing braces or suspenders. Ah well, better a priggish solicitor than a lecherous one, she supposed.
She could not remember how Arnold Wyburd got away. Didn’t telephone for a cab; must have walked to the tramstop. When she went downstairs, in time for the children’s return from the park, she found the draft will. She wished it had been the final version. She drove herself in next morning, in the electric brougham, and handed over the approved draft to some young woman at Keemis & Wyburd’s office: Arnold did not appear; and poor Archie was at home preparing for his fall in Pitt Street.
‘Who’s for brekkie?’ Too much a clattering scratching clucking: too rude an interruption to thought and stillness.
‘Who are you?’ Mrs Hunter asked.
‘I’m your nurse — Sister Badgery. And here’s a nice coddled egg!’
‘I was hoping you’d be the other one — Mary. She hasn’t walked out on me — has she?’
‘She’s downstairs enjoying a cup of coffee. Sister’s off duty now. She only stayed on this morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of the — your daughter.’
‘Oh, yes. They never met. De Santis came to me that other time — just after I’d returned from some island — after Dorothy had flown back to France in one of her huffs.’
‘Here’s the lovely egg, dear! Open mouth, Mrs Hunter!’
Mrs Hunter pointed her chin. ‘I haven’t been interested in breakfast — not since I married. I like a good luncheon—“dinner” they seemed to call it nowadays — nothing heavy at night.’ After which her gums closed down.
‘Just a tiny spoonful!’ Mrs Hunter could feel Sister Badgery’s bone spoon trying to prise her lips open. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to disappoint me. Or Mr Wyburd here. There’s no one has your interests at heart so much as Mr Wyburd.’
‘Oh, my solicitor. Yes. Have you met him?’
Sister Badgery’s arrival with the hateful egg had confused Mrs Hunter: she was terrified her mind might crumble before Dorothy came, let alone Basil, who was delayed.
‘Oh yes, we know each other. Don’t we, Mr Wyburd?’ Sister Badgery winked, and moistened her already glistening teeth.
He knew her too well. She had shaken her head at him on sidling into the room with the tray, reminding him of a white Leghorn: inquisitive, ostentatiously industrious, silly, easily outraged. She would look in at the office on Fridays after duty and he handed her her envelope. (This had been ordained by Mrs Hunter for all her staff, not as a nuisance to him, but to ensure personal relationships for them.) Sister Badgery would sit a while to air her pretensions, based on her training at the Royal Prince Alfred and a curtailed marriage to a retired tea planter from Ceylon.
Over just visibly reluctant lips Mr Wyburd murmured, ‘Sister Badgery and I are old friends.’
Mrs Hunter swallowed her third mouthful of nauseating egg, some of which, she could feel, had dribbled on to her chin, and Badgery would be too flattered by Arnold to notice. ‘Mr Wyburd,’ she succeeded in ejecting the words, ‘should be having his own breakfast. It’s been arranged. I hope it’s a man’s breakfast, Arnold. Foreign women don’t understand that a man’s strength — hinges — on his breakfast.’
Sister Badgery laughed at the joke; the things on the tray clattered.
‘I don’t doubt it will be an adequate breakfast,’ Mr Wyburd said, and Sister Badgery renewed her laughter as though he too had made a joke.
‘I don’t know why you didn’t go sooner,’ Mrs Hunter was hectoring: foolishness in a dependent would turn her lungs to leather in an instant.
‘You were having such a good sleep,’ he protested; ‘I didn’t want to disturb it.’
‘I wasn’t sleeping — only thinking. I hope Mrs Lippmann has cooked you a chop — or a dish of devilled kidneys. Alfred used to take cold chops whenever he went mustering or drafting. Horrid! But that’s what the men like. Take him — show him, Sister!’
‘I’m sure Mr Wyburd knows the way. I dare say he could show me corners of this house I never ever knew existed.’ Sister Badgery laughed some more, and Mr Wyburd went downstairs exceedingly humiliated.
‘Now you can put away that wretched egg. There are things you must do for me — urgently.’
‘Really? But the coffee. You’ve forgotten your coffee, Mrs Hunter.’
She had too. ‘Did you put the brandy in it?’
‘Oh dear, yes, my life wouldn’t be worth much, would it? if I forgot the brandy.’
Mrs Hunter groped for and took the cup, her lips feeling for the lip. She found, and strength returned in a delirious stream, through the funnel of her mouth, right down to her chilly toes.
Sister Badgery watched this old blind puppy with approval, even affection. She did not approve of drink, only of Mrs Hunter’s brandy. She admired the rich, and enjoyed working for them because it gave her a sense of security, of connection, however vicarious. To her friends she would refer to wealthy patients always by their first names; she knew intimately strangers she had read about in gossip columns: they were no longer strangers if you read about them often enough.
Mrs Hunter was supping her brandied coffee; soon she would grow muzzy, and sleep.
‘I want you to make me up, Sister,’ she spluttered through a last mouthful, ‘for my daughter’s arrival.’
‘Make you up? You know I can’t. In all my life nothing but good soap and water ever touched my face.’
‘I was afraid of that.’ She sounded more resigned than bitter. ‘If only it were little Manhood: she could do it for me.’
‘I don’t doubt. Sister Manhood comes of a different background.’
‘So what? She came off a banana farm. And you’re an engine driver’s daughter.’
‘My father was an engineer employed by the State Government. My three brothers are public servants, and two of them elders of the Presbyterian Church.’ Mrs Hunter did not care as much as Sister Badgery. ‘I had a very strict upbringing. Even when I started my nurse’s training at P.A., my father expected a full account of my leisure activities. As for Sister Manhood — she was out dancing around with any young resident doctor who asked her. I know that for a fact. Oh, I have nothing against Sister Manhood. Believe me! She’s a charming girl — so full of vitality, fm actually fond of Sister Manhood, and only wish she wouldn’t touch up so much; it gives strangers a wrong impression.’
Mrs Hunter said, ‘I like to feel I have been made up. It fills me with — an illusion — of beauty. Of course I may never have been beautifuclass="underline" even in my heyday I was never absolutely sure — only of what was reflected in other people’s eyes — and I can no longer see distinctly.’