Queen of Flowers (4 page)

Do you like your dress, Joan?’

‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,’ said Joannie. ‘I never thought that scary old lady would make anything fit for me to wear. She glared at me the whole time she was pinning me into it. I mean, I know I’m the wrong shape for 1928.’

‘You would have been perfect for 1890,’ Marie consoled her. ‘And I would have looked like a toothpick.’

‘Yes, but we’re in 1928 and looking like a toothpick is
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KERRY GREENWOOD

all the rage,’ said Joannie sadly. ‘But the sweet pea dress—

I’ve never looked so good in anything. And Marie looks good in it too.’

‘Madame Fleuri is a genius,’ Phryne pointed out. ‘What about you, Diane?’

‘It’s a lovely dress,’ said Diane, munching an anchovy.

‘I thought it was going to be like it was when my sister got married. All bridesmaids have to look like a lump of wet lettuce, you know, in case the bride gets cross. You remember my wet lettuce dress, Rose?’

‘Not going to make any new husband look away from the blushing bride,’ agreed Rose. ‘I thought it was more like spinach, actually. Old spinach. At least green suits you. My mother adores white on girls, so I have to wear white, and white does not suit me.’

This was true. As Jean-Paul removed the empty plates and brought small cups of chilled bouillon, Phryne wondered what would look good on the blooming young women. Rose had almost red hair, pale blue eyes and blotchy, irritable skin.

Severely plain box-cut linen confined her curves but did not conceal them. She seemed about to burst out of her seams, which was disconcertingly erotic and surely not what her mother had intended. White was definitely not Rose’s colour.

She needed, perhaps, to wear dark shades, perhaps even wine red or dark blue, which would leach some of the redness from her skin and hair and show up those surprising Scandinavian eyes. A good dusting of pearl powder and a sedative and she might be quite presentable.

Phryne suggested darker colours and Rose shrugged.

‘That’s what Madame Fleuri said, but I can’t do anything about it. No one listens to me. Girls wore white in Grandpapa’s time and in Mamma’s time too, so I’ve got to wear it.

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Even if I never find a husband and have to wear white forever.’

‘There are worse fates,’ said Marie darkly. ‘I don’t want a husband. What would I want a husband bothering me for? I’ve got music to learn. A husband would want me to have dinner with him and have babies and things. I haven’t got time for all that sort of thing.’

‘Well,’ said Diane, slowly, ‘there might be a lot of fun in having a husband who wanted to do the same sorts of things as I do. You know. Holidays. Hiking? Skiing? He might turn out to be a jolly chap and quite a dear to have around. He might have his own plane. And he might let me fly it.’

‘He might at that,’ agreed Phryne. ‘But you might also have your own plane and you could let him fly it.’

‘That’s true,’ said Diane, thinking about it. ‘You can fly, can’t you, Miss Fisher? My brother said you were a famous flier.’

‘Only in a plane. It isn’t as hard as driving a car, you know.’

‘Only a bit further to fall if you make a mistake,’ said Joannie, shuddering. ‘Not for me! I like jolly things, like theatres and shopping and nice little dinners. And I’d have a house full of babies. I like babies.’

‘Someone has to,’ said Phryne.

‘And books,’ said Joannie. ‘Lots of books. I could fill up a library with the books I want! When I’d read all the French ones I could learn Italian. And Spanish. But not German. It’s a lumpy language. Ugly.’

Joannie looked up in surprise and blushed like a poppy as Jean-Paul gave her an approving smile—Jean-Paul had lived through the siege of Paris as a child and did not approve of Germanness in any shape or form. Rose giggled.

As Jean-Paul turned away, Rose said in a piercing whisper,
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‘Joannie! I’ll tell your mother you were flirting with the waiter!’

‘Rose, you mustn’t! I wasn’t!’ gasped Joan.

‘I’ll tell!’ threatened Rose, giggling again.

This was the outside of enough. Phryne had never approved of schoolgirl malice. ‘Rose,’ she said, ‘I might mention that if you wish to wound your friend, you could manage do it with greater propriety and a good deal more wit. And you can do it elsewhere. Now, here is roast chicken with beans and piped potatoes. Bon appetit!’

Rose did not blush but stared down at her plate in abject misery. Phryne felt annoyed. Had she had such tender and explosive feelings at that age? Probably. But she had had the advantage of a steely will, a firm intention of doing exactly as she wished, and better manners. Also, perhaps, a greater measure of cunning. And a good idea of what she wished. And she had done it. All of it. Some of it unwise and some of it perilous, but she had left her family, established herself, and now had just what she wanted. She tried not to feel smug and bent a forgiving smile on the wretched Rose.

Kind Joannie coaxed Rose into tasting the chicken and soon they were discussing futures again. Phryne ate well, declined another glass of champagne in case she should set a bad example, and listened as they talked quietly, wary of setting Rose off again. They were nice girls, she decided. Nice and ordinary and plain, destined for nice ordinary fates.

Except the bone-thin, dedicated Marie, who would probably find her viola a more attractive partner than any man, unless he could engage her interest, possibly by standing between her and her music stand. Joannie would have her books and her babies. Diane would find a stout lad from one of the Public Schools who would take her hiking and skiing and
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eventually on a long walk down the aisle to the tune of the march from Lohengrin. She would then have strong, stocky children who would always have skinned knees and would grow up to be engineers. And Rose . . . Yes, what about Rose?

Rose was a puzzle. Noisy, bright, intermittently hysterical, jumpy, overendowed, ill advised. Used to alcohol, too. She hadn’t even gasped at her second glass of champagne. Phryne did not know what would become of Rose. But if someone didn’t step in to protect and educate her, it might be for the worst.

On that dark thought, dessert arrived. Jean-Paul laid it down with a flourish. Madame, who had been an apprentice in the Anatole kitchen, specialised in cold puddings.
Glace
Alhambra
was a heavenly pile of strawberry mousse with cold sweet vanilla ice cream at its heart. All of her ice creams were superb. Phryne intended to spend the summer working her way through them, from
glace à l’abricot
to
glace aux poires
and all the
glaces composées
. Even Berthe, Anatole’s very severe sister, thought that Elise Bertrand, nee Lizzie Chambers, made a promising
pouding froid
.

Champagne might have been a strange new experience but ice cream was not, and the girls fell on the glace with squeaks of delight. Phryne told them to eat all of it and excused herself to go to the kitchen and greet her ex-clients, Lizzie and Bunny Jenkins, aware that she might receive a flung ladle for her pains. Cooks at lunch peppered more than the soup.

Lizzie was floury and hot and gave Phryne a floury, hot, pleased hug. Mr Jenkins brushed her floured front. He was wearing a cook’s overall and now looked like the White Rabbit happily exiled from Wonderland.

‘Nice lunch?’ asked Lizzie, a trifle anxiously.

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‘Beautiful lunch. Wonderful lunch. Pity about the company. I really don’t have a lot of fellow-feeling for girls of that age.’

‘Yes you do. Just not those girls. Who have you got?’

Lizzie allowed herself a peep through the swinging doors.

‘Ah. Well, Diane lunches here once a week with her aunt, who is just like her. Solid. Marie comes here with her father. That man is such a good musician, and he flirts with his daughter all the time—no wonder she sticks to music. Joannie is a dear. You must have liked her. She’s the one who found that starving kitten in the alley, persuaded Anatole—and he was in a mood, too, the oysters were late—to compound a special dish of fish for it, and carried it home in the bosom of a dress which must have cost her mother ten pounds. Of course, she does speak very good French, or she might have been donged with a pot, customer or not. Her children are going to be polyglots. So I suppose—oh dear, yes. Well, that’s Rose for you. Poor girl.’

‘What about Rose?’ asked Phryne.

Jean-Paul slammed into the kitchen, sniffed at the sight of the cook leaning on the sink and gossiping in the middle of lunch, and slammed out with a tray full of soups. Mr Jenkins twitched his pink nose anxiously.

‘You get on with the salads,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I can talk while I work. Most of the orders are in now, anyway. I just have to watch this
bifteck
on the charcoal grill. You know, Phryne, I’m so happy and I owe this all to you.
Mon cher mari
is the kindest of men and I get to cook as much as I like. I’m learning such a lot! And I’m going to be a very good dessert chef. But you’re busy and it’s nice of you to come in and say hello. You don’t want to hear all this stuff. Look at me, gossiping like an old woman.’

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‘I’ve got a reason for asking,’ said Phryne. Lizzie’s strong wrists turned the steak, slapped it on the plate, cleaned the edges and spooned out the bearnaise sauce which had been keeping warm on the edge of the grill. Her movements were all decided, skilled and complete. The young woman was robust and alive with purpose—the very thing which Rose lacked.

‘Oh well, it’s just that she’s been in here rather often. At night. With gentlemen. If you can call them gentlemen. I only say that because I met your friend Mr Bert at the Vic Market recently and pointed one of them out and he said that they were bad men, and he told me that their money’s as good as anyone’s if I didn’t mind where it came from. Would you trust his opinion? He looked quite severely at me.’

‘On bad men, Bert is an acknowledged expert,’ Phryne confirmed.

‘And you know, Phryne, I’m no good at clothes and things, but last time I saw Rose she wasn’t wearing much. I mean, the dress had a sort of front and really hardly any back. Jean-Jacques had to relieve Jean-Paul of that table because he was so distracted. Jean-Jacques is married,’ she explained.

‘And she was drinking too much,’ said Phryne.

‘I didn’t tell you that,’ said Lizzie.

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Phryne. ‘I heard you not saying it.

Never mind. I’ll come back one night when you aren’t cooking and take you—out to dinner,’ she promised. She blew a kiss to Mr Jenkins and left the kitchen for the severe black coffee which Jean-Paul had deposited next to her place. The girls had polished off the
glace
. They all looked pleased. Except for Rose, who was tapping again. Her chewed fingernails danced across the white paper tablecloth.

What, indeed, would become of Rose?

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Miss Anna Ross to Miss Mavis Sutherland 1 October 1912

Dear Mavis

Thank you for your letter. As to your questions, I blush as I write
to tell you that there is no one in the world for me but Mr Rory
McCrimmon the piper. He comes from Skye where the best
pipers can lure the seals out of the sea. They say their ancestor
married a seal, a selkie. He has beautiful brown eyes and his
hair is dark and curls in the most darling way at the back of
his neck. And when he speaks to me to say something like ‘pass
the salt’ I melt, I grow short of breath, and my knees become
unreliable.

Mama hasn’t noticed because we are very busy. All she has
said was to approve of me helping more in the house and reading
fewer novels. I confess that novel reading is my principal vice
but novel heroes cannot compare with Mr McCrimmon. In my
own mind I call him Rory Dubh the way the others do. It means
Rory the Black, because of his hair and his eyes, not his skin,
which is fairer than mine. In fact he has an almost girlish
complexion, with pink cheeks like a milkmaid.

Mr McLeod is a cold man, not interested in servants. He
isn’t rude, but he isn’t conversable, either. Mr James Murray
is perfectly agreeable and tells very good stories, apart from
playing a wonderful fiddle. One of his reels even made old
Mrs Carter get up and dance. And she dances surprisingly
well for someone of her age and bulk. I asked him the name
of the tune which had dragged us up out of our chairs and
he said it was ‘Round the House and Mind the Dresser’ and
I don’t know if he was only funning because he has a very
straight face.

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There, now I’ve run out of paper even though I’ve written
it across as well. Wish me well, dear Mavis. Mama has said that
I can go to the church dance with Rory McCrimmon and I’m
all aflutter.

Your loving friend

Anna

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CHAPTER THREE