Silver Wattle (43 page)

The last of his words faded as the ferry gathered speed and pulled away into the evening. I could not move from the railing. I clung to it while Philip shrank into a tiny figure on the edge of the dock. We watched each other until the ferry passed Fort Denison and we were lost from each other’s view.

P
hilip’s revelation left me stunned. I muddled through Freddy’s birthday dinner, lifting my champagne glass and complimenting the band, all the while with Philip’s voice in my head: ‘There was no baby. It was a lie. A lie Beatrice told to get me to marry her quickly and to keep me away from you.’

The following morning I went to the sewing room where I kept my photographic equipment and pulled out a copy of the print I had taken of Beatrice. I stared at her pale eyes, the white skin with its galaxy of freckles, the mass of hair. I had a different impression of her now. Gone was the image of the breezy girl who gathered people to her bosom. She was manipulative and cunning. I put the print down and stared out to the garden where the builders were working on the summerhouse and fernery that were my birthday present to Freddy. Beatrice had a way of clinging to people. We had all felt sorry for her because her mother was dying. I remembered what she had said about not having many female friends. I no longer wondered why.

I thought about waking Klara but decided against it. Her wedding plans were tiring her out and her graduation performance was to take place the week after she and Robert returned from their honeymoon. The head of the school had not been pleased by the proposed interruption to Klara’s studies but had given her leave, not wanting to lose her altogether. Klara had not started to show her pregnancy but she had been plagued by morning sickness. I decided to leave her alone to rest. But there was someone I could talk to and that was my future brother-in-law.

‘Klara’s all right, isn’t she?’ Robert asked, when I telephoned him. ‘There’s no problem?’

The relief in his voice when I told him there was nothing wrong with Klara endeared him to me. There had been a time when I had doubted that he would take care of my sister properly, but I no longer did. ‘No, everything is fine,’ I assured him. ‘It’s Beatrice I want to talk to you about.’

Robert paused for a moment. ‘Then come this morning,’ he said. ‘I will be waiting for you.’

Freddy had already left for the office and Rex would be required to chauffeur Klara to school. If I wanted to see Robert that morning I would have to drive myself. I opened the garage door to access the shiny Bentley Freddy had bought me. On another morning I might have smiled when I remembered those driving lessons on Sunday afternoons with my husband. The Bentley had a trumpet horn mounted on the outside of the cabin right next to the handbrake. Every time I went to release the handbrake, I would toot the horn by mistake instead so that each trip began with a cheerful ‘honk’ and ended with one too, which would send Freddy and me into peals of laughter.

I was greeted at the Swan residence by a maid who showed me into the drawing room where Robert was waiting.

‘I distanced myself from Beatrice after she wrote to me from England,’ Robert said as soon as the maid had left. ‘I knew she was good at getting her way, but when she congratulated herself on having “snared” Philip with a good bit of “trickery” I could no longer respect her. I knew she could be calculating but that was the icing on the cake. She’s changed.’

I remembered what Philip had said about Beatrice being different when she was in Europe.

Robert took a sip of tea. ‘Freddy figured Beatrice out long ago,’ he said. ‘That’s why she didn’t like him. She knew he could see through her. He once tried to tell me that Beatrice wasn’t virtuous and I wouldn’t listen. Well, now it’s Philip who suffers.’

‘His father must have lied to him about the pregnancy,’ I said. ‘Philip said that he had confirmed it.’

Robert nodded. ‘That’s the worst of it, I think. It’s caused a rift between the father and son. But Doctor Page Senior was set on Philip marrying Beatrice. Poor old fellow. He didn’t know her any better than we did.’

I thought about what Philip had told me about his mother’s and Mrs Fahey’s pact. I imagined when Philip found out that he had been ‘tricked’ he could not play the doting husband Beatrice expected him to be.

Robert studied me. ‘You and Philip were in love, weren’t you?’ he said, without a hint of disapproval.

‘Did Klara tell you?’

Robert shook his head. ‘Klara and you keep your secrets and that’s fine by me. If you asked her never to speak of it, then she never would. I’m sorry about what happened to Philip, but I can’t say I regret you marrying Freddy. You and Freddy have been good for each other. You’ve brought each other to life.’

It was nearly ten o’clock and Robert was giving a guest lecture on Indonesian instruments at the Conservatorium of Music at eleven. I told him I should leave. He called the maid to collect my coat. When she returned she also gave me a bag of flower bulbs. ‘Mrs Swan said I was to give these to you,’ she said.

‘My mother knows that tomorrow is your gardening day,’ explained Robert. ‘Klara told her.’

‘Wednesday is Rex’s day off,’ I said. ‘I like to potter around the garden by myself, planning what plants to add and which ones to move or replace. It helps me work out problems with my script.’

Robert walked me to the car. ‘I’m grateful to you, Adela,’ he said. ‘You’ve been kind to me and you’ve managed to get my mother and sister on side about the wedding arrangements. You’ve made life smoother for us where a lot of sisters would have made it harder.’

Robert’s words reminded me of Mother and Emilie. ‘I am glad to help you,’ I said, slipping my hand into his.

Robert leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘We will be brother and sister soon, you know.’

I returned home with a heavy heart. The workmen had finished the summerhouse and were planting the ferns. The garden had transformed since I had come to live with Freddy. Rex and I had gotten rid of the formalities better suited to Europe with its bleak winters. This garden was alive with glossy-leafed camellias and lilly-pillys in their natural forms, tree ferns and borders of gardenias, boronias, native daisies and agapanthus. Rainbow lorikeets and honey-eaters bounced on the bottlebrush and grevillea blossoms while ducks splashed in the pond. Gum saplings stood in the corners of the garden where they would one day be trees. I had not seen any possums or flying foxes yet, but they would come in time, when the trees grew.

‘You and Freddy have been good for each other. You’ve brought each other to life,’ Robert had said.

I opened the door to the house, glad to be alone for the day. I called to Regina and asked her to make me some tea. Her eyes shifted to the drawing room door, which was shut. I flung it open and was struck by the splashes of colour that jumped at me. On every table and sideboard were bouquets of flowers: roses, dahlias, lilies, irises, gerberas and sunflowers.

Regina handed me an envelope, smiled and fled. I looked at the envelope then opened it.

Darling,

Thank you for my lovely birthday dinner last night. You were tired when we returned home and you forgot to hide your script. I found it on the hall table along with your purse. I couldn’t resist reading it. What a story! My dearest, you’ve exceeded yourself. I can’t wait to work on
The Emerald Valley
with you.

Love always,
Your Freddy

I sank down on the sofa, overwhelmed by everything. The flowers filled the room with a heady, intoxicating fragrance. I closed my eyes and squeezed away the tears. I could not give in to them. If I did, I may never get off that sofa again.

If Mrs Swan had set her heart on a traditional Anglo-Saxon wedding, even one not performed in a church, she should not have let her son marry into our family. Uncle Ota emerged from the house in a morning suit with trousers with turn-ups, white gloves and a carnation in his buttonhole. Klara was lovely in a lace dress with the hemline longer at the back and a veil with a rosemary headdress. Ranjana followed in a shell-pink sari and Mary and I glided after her in matching beaded dresses with handkerchief skirts.

We walked down a green carpet bordered by pots of petunias and past the guests to the summerhouse, which was decorated with roses. Robert, who was standing next to Freddy, beamed at his beautiful bride. But the traditional English wedding ended there. Before the couple made their vows, Ranjana tied a cloth from Klara’s waist to Robert’s shoulder to symbolise the marital bond and Uncle Ota placed a stone on the floor of the summerhouse for Klara and Robert to rest their right feet on. Both of these were Indian traditions to bless the couple. At the reception afterwards, the bridal waltz gave way to a polka that brought the rest of the wedding party onto the floor. Mrs Swan nearly fainted at the sight of her guests snubbing tradition. Hugh and I plied her with champagne. Freddy twirled by and swept her into his arms, spinning her around the floor until she took on the blush of a young girl.

‘I like Europeans,’ I heard her tell him. ‘They are so…lively.’

I turned to see Esther with Thomas. He had trouble bending his knee but could move well enough with Esther’s help and no longer needed a crutch.

At the dinner afterwards, Freddy read out the telegrams of the guests who had not been able to attend. He paused for a moment before reading the final one: ‘Doctor Philip Page wishes Mr and Mrs Swan every happiness for their future life together.’

‘Dreadful business, that Doctor Page,’ I heard an elderly society matron say to her companion during the supper.

‘But isn’t he the best children’s doctor in Sydney?’ enquired her companion.

The society matron sniggered. ‘Indeed, you may go to his rooms for treatment…but no decent family would have him in their home. They say his wife has got up to all sorts of things in London and that she is even living with another woman.’

‘Good gracious,’ exclaimed her companion. ‘The Pages used to be such a respectable family.’

I felt Philip’s humiliation as keenly as if the woman had been talking about me. I glanced at Klara and Robert, so happy in their love. Our family would be proud to have Philip in our homes if not for the complication of my feelings for him. All he had ever wanted to do was help people and now he was seen as an unsuitable guest—neither an eligible bachelor nor a decently married man. I found myself hating Beatrice for what she had done to him. Not only had she blighted his hopes for a happy married life and children, but she had exposed him to public shame. If what the woman had said was true, he had grounds for divorce. But the press loved nothing more than a scandal, and he was probably afraid to drag his family’s name any further into the mud.

When it was time for Klara and Robert to leave, the guests lined up like a royal guard along the green carpet. Each one of us held a candle. I felt as if a piece of glass had lodged itself in the pit of my stomach. The thought that my sister, so much a part of me, would no longer live under the same roof was a separation I had put out of my mind while I had planned her wedding. I realised how ill prepared I was for it. It had been difficult enough to get used to sleeping in different rooms when I married Freddy and Klara came to live with us.

Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t spoil the moment. The more I tried to control myself, the faster the tears filled my eyes. Who could be more in tune with Klara or me than we were with each other?

Klara stepped in front of me. In the candlelight I saw the conflict of happiness and anxiety that waged in her eyes. When she glanced at Robert it was with adoration. But when she looked at me, her mouth trembled.

‘We must buy a place where we can all live together like we did at Watsons Bay,’ she whispered.

‘Klara…’ I began but could not finish. How could I admonish my sister and tell her that we were married women now and must start families of our own with our husbands? It was taking all my strength not to cling to her.

After Klara and Robert had left, Freddy drove me to Cremorne Point and we sat together in the car with the top down and gazed at the stars. He sensed my sadness and so did not talk about the wedding.

‘I’ve been thinking about
The Emerald Valley
,’ he said. ‘There is really only one place to make it: the Blue Mountains.’

I turned to him. I had written the picture with the Blue Mountains in mind but Freddy and Hugh had been scouting locations closer to Sydney for the bushland scenes. The Blue Mountains were only eighty miles away but the roads were rough and it would not be an easy journey. It also meant we would have to pay our actors more because they would be far away from the theatres.

‘Truly?’ I asked Freddy. ‘What about the costs?’

‘Hang the costs,’ he said.

Freddy could not have known how happy he had made me.

To distract myself from missing Klara and thinking about Philip, I persuaded Freddy to take me to Tilly’s Cinema every night, even if it meant seeing some pictures several times. Uncle Ota invited Charles Chauvel to speak about his new film after the screening one evening. We had enjoyed his first one,
The Moth of Moonbi
, and were keen to hear what he had to say.

Greenhide
was a well-constructed film so I was surprised when Chauvel told the audience that he’d had to travel around the Outback towns of Queensland to get it screened because the major theatres would not show it. ‘And even in the Outback I had to pay the showmen to take off their American film for the night and do all the publicity myself,’ he told us.

Chauvel was not only the writer and director of his films but the business manager, producer, publicist and distributor! I appreciated how easy Freddy made directing pictures for me.

‘If it goes on like this, the local film industry will be dead in a year,’ I told Freddy, after we had returned home and were sitting in the kitchen drinking our nightly glass of buttermilk before bed.

Freddy cocked an eyebrow. ‘What are you being so pessimistic about? Australasian Films have built a new studio, and have spent over one hundred thousand pounds on equipment.’