I totted it all up just for interest; she’s going to spend nearly eight hundred pounds doing up that room, I should think. They don’t spend anything on themselves in the normal way; they live quite modestly though they spend a good bit on the garden. But she’s really letting herself go on Alan’s room. It’s going to look awfully nice by the time we’ve done with it.
I stopped reading and stared round the room. There were the new curtains, the new shades on all the lamps, the deep new pile of the Indian carpet beneath my feet, the new loose cover of the chair that I was sitting in, the slightly different appearance of the wallpaper by the electric switch, the gleam of the new paint. I had not noticed any of them.
June 20th. The Colonel placed an order for a new Land Rover today for Alan. Delivery is about two months so it should be here about a month before he arrives. They don’t use horses much now, only the boundary riders who go round every day inspecting every fence and every gate and looking to see if any of the sheep are straying or if any of them have anything the matter with them. The Colonel goes everywhere in his Land Rover and he says that Alan must have his own. His feet won’t matter a bit then.
I heard them talking about this at dinner, and of course I mentioned it to Annie in the kitchen because there didn’t seem to be anything confidential in the fact that they were getting a new motor vehicle upon the property. Everyone will know about it tomorrow. Her reaction was typically Annie. She said, “Aye, they’re getting for him everything the heart of man could desire, saving the one thing.” I asked, “What’s that?” She said, “A wife.” She’s very shrewd.
July 10th. They came back from Melbourne yesterday. I think the prospect of Alan coming home has been very good for her; although it’s the middle of the winter and pretty cold she was quite fit and well and told me that she hadn’t had much pain; she got up for breakfast this morning, fit as a flea. She told me that she had chosen the pattern for Alan’s carpet and cabled the order; it will take about a month to make and she’s told them that it’s got to get on board a certain P. and O. boat on a certain date or she won’t have it, so it should be here about a month before he gets home. She’s got the curtain material and a woman is to come here next week from Ballarat and make the curtains and the pelmets here, staying till it’s done. The painters finished last week. She showed me the bedspread and the lampshades; they’re awfully pretty.
She told me that when Alan comes home she wants me to look after his clothes, like a valet. She’s going to get Mrs. Plowden to come in every morning to do some of the cleaning I do now because she says that they’ll be having many more guests in the house when Alan comes home and there’ll be a good deal more work, but she wants me to take over Alan’s clothes. She’s going to show me how to do it and I can practise on the Colonel till Alan comes home. The drill is to lay out the clothes that he’ll be wearing in the evening ready for him on the bed at about six o’clock before he goes up to change for dinner; she’s going to show me how to put the studs into an evening shirt and how she wants it done. Then when I go up to turn the bed down I collect the clothes that he’s been wearing during the day and take them away and brush them and put them away in the wardrobe, looking out for any spots or dirt or loose buttons and doing something about it next day. Nothing’s got to go back in the wardrobe till it’s been brushed and looked over and put right. The same with the evening clothes; I collect them and take them away to brush when I take him in the morning tea.
I tried to tell her that I wouldn’t be here when Alan comes home, but I wasn’t ready and I didn’t know how to bring the subject up. I’ll have to tell her soon, but it’s going to be frightfully difficult. I haven’t been able to think of any story yet that doesn’t mean telling her a whole string of lies, and I’d hate to do that. I’m not sure that I’d be very good at it, either.
I don’t know what to do. I would like to see Alan again; he was such a grand person and he can’t have changed so much. I’ve been so happy here, I’ll just hate going away. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t get back into the Wrens. Perhaps I’ll be able to go back; the peace talks at Korea don’t seem to be getting anywhere. That would be much the best of all. If a full scale war broke out again I could tell her that I was a Wren on the reserve and I’d got to go back into the Service. That wouldn’t mean telling any lies at all, hardly.
July 22nd. I’ve been wondering if somehow I couldn’t see Alan and have a talk to him before he comes home. If I went to Fremantle or something and met him there. He’s such a very good sort, he’d advise me and tell me what to do, and he might somehow be able to put things right for me so that I could come back and go on here. The one thing which I couldn’t bear is that he should come home and walk into the house and say, “Hullo, Leading Wren Prentice, what are you doing here? I thought we’d finished with you when Bill got killed.” He wouldn’t say that, of course, but that’s what it would be like. If I could have a quiet talk with him before he gets home I think I could make him understand how it all happened, and perhaps we could concoct something together that would make it possible for me to go on here. After all, there’s no reason why his mother and father need ever know that I had anything at all to do with Bill. Alan would only have to keep his mouth shut, and everything could go on here as usual. Only Alan and I know what Bill and I were to each other. It wouldn’t be much to ask him to keep quiet about it. But it’s going to take a bit of explaining what I’ve been doing here at all, even to Alan.
I don’t know what to do.
July 28th. The Korean war is over, and they’ve signed a truce at Panmunjom. There isn’t going to be another full scale war, and I suppose I ought to be glad. But this finishes all chance I ever had of getting back into the Wrens. They won’t be needing any more Ordnance Wrens now; they’ll be needing less.
I simply can’t think what I could do when I leave here; I’ve got nowhere to go, nothing I want to do. I’ve got to try and think of something.
I laid the diary down, glad for an excuse to stop reading it for a time, and I put another log or two upon the fire. Outside, the sky was starting to show grey.
Viola Dawson had been right about ex-Service people. Janet Prentice, at any rate, had banked upon another war that would solve all her difficulties and bring her back into the full, useful life she once had known. Without it she was lost, because another war had been her main hope since the end of the last one.
I sat down again and went back to the diaries with mounting reluctance. It was a violation of her deepest privacy that I should read what she had written, but I had to know.
August 17th. It’s only about six weeks now till Alan sails, and I can’t make up my mind what to do. I’ve been putting it off and trying not to think about it, hoping that something would turn up.
I don’t think it would be possible to go to Fremantle to meet Alan on the ship before he gets here. I believe the Colonel’s going to fly across and meet him there and fly back here with him. That’s what he did when Alan came back before, after the war, and he’s talking of doing it again, but I don’t think they’ve decided anything yet. If he did that, of course, it would be impossible for me to meet Alan alone before he got here. I can’t help feeling that’s the way to tackle it. I know he’d be able to get me out of this mess. But even if the Colonel didn’t go to Fremantle, I don’t see how I could ask her for a holiday then. They’re all counting on me to be here and they’re looking forward so much to his homecoming. I don’t think I’d have the face to ask for a holiday just at that time. It would look awfully strange, and if they started to get curious and found out that I’d been to Fremantle to meet Alan before he got home it would be worst of all.
Last night I thought I’d better write to Alan and explain things, and I tried to write a rough copy of a letter to send him. But it’s one of those things I don’t think you can do in a letter. I only met him once, nine years ago, and he probably hardly remembers me. I’ve been thinking of him as the same person he was then, b
ut everybody here says that he’s changed a lot. He’s really a total stranger, although he doesn’t seem like that to me. He’d get a letter from his mother’s parlourmaid asking if he’d mind deceiving his mother when he comes home so that the parlourmaid could keep her job, because the parlourmaid had been deceiving her and living here under false pretences for the last year.
I tried all last night to write a letter wrapping up those facts and making it sound all right, but I couldn’t do it. He’s a barrister; he’d see through it at once and get suspicious. I know if I could see him and talk to him quietly before he gets home I could explain how it all happened and make him understand, but I don’t believe it’s possible to do it in a letter.
The curtains and the pelmets in Alan’s room are finished. They look lovely. The carpet’s supposed to be arriving at the end of the month. We’ve got all the furniture piled in the middle of the room and I’ve been waxing and polishing the floor surround with the electric floor polisher. It’s some kind of Tasmanian hardwood, myrtle I think; it’s a sort of golden colour with a bit of pink in it. It’s starting to look awfully nice for him.
September 25th. Alan sails from England in about ten days’ time. I’ve been drifting, hoping something would turn up, but now I can’t drift any longer.
Yesterday morning I was dusting in the hall and when I’d finished that I went through to the dining-room to do the sideboard and the chairs. Mrs. Plowden was in the kitchen scrubbing the floor and talking to Annie. They were making a fair bit of noise and they didn’t know I was there, and the swing door was open so that I could hear every word they said. They were talking about Alan and a girl called Sylvia Holmes whose people have a property near Hamilton, just speculation based on the fact that he took her to the races six years ago. They’re terribly anxious to see him married, and they’re always gossiping. And then Mrs. Plowden said, “He might do worse than look in his own kitchen, to my way of thinking.” And Annie said, “Aye, that’s a fact. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, and it won’t be the last.” I went back into the hall. I’m sure they didn’t know that I was there.
Well, now it’s come out into the open, and I think I’m glad. It’s what’s been wrong for a long time, this interest that I’ve been feeling for Alan. That’s really what’s kept me here in the last months although I wouldn’t admit it—that, and the comfortable living of Coombargana, that I’ve been reluctant to give up. There are some things about oneself that it’s not very nice to wake up to.
All this time I’ve been kidding myself about Alan. I’ve been thinking I could go to Fremantle and talk to him like a big brother, and he’d get me out of this jam that I’ve got in. But it’s nastier than that. What I’ve really been up to is that if I had a heart to heart talk with Alan about Bill and all that I’ve been doing here I could make him fall in love with me, and then I wouldn’t have to go away from Coombargana. It’s time now to be honest, and that’s what I’ve been intending. Coombargana means ease and gracious living and security and wealth for the remainder of my life. I think that that’s what I’ve been reaching out for, really. And I’ve damn nearly got it. If Alan married me, everybody here would be quite glad.
This isn’t a fairy story. This isn’t King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. This is another story altogether, of the Beggar Maid plotting to tell King Cophetua a sob-stuff story so that he would fall in love with her and take her out of the kitchen, and marry her, so that she’d be Queen and lord it over all the other servants, and live in luxury for the remainder of her life. There’s no happy ending to that one, not even for King Cophetua because he’d come to realise quite soon how he’d been trapped.
Oh Bill, I can’t imagine what I’ve been doing, how I’ve got myself in such a mess.
October 10th. Alan sailed about five days ago, and I suppose his ship would be somewhere near Gibraltar now, and coming closer every minute. It docks at Fremantle on the 30th and they’re expecting a letter from him to say that he’ll be flying home from there. There’s only about three weeks now to go.
There’s no way out of this one. I’ll have to meet him some time, either here or at Fremantle, and now I don’t know that it makes much difference which. There’s something horrible about me. I know when I meet him I’ll be wanting him to fall in love with me, and I’ve got such good cards to play. But it’s all wrong. It’s horrible and sordid and wrong, because I’m only thinking of him in that way because I want to stay at Coombargana.
I really did love Bill. I loved him very truly, and I still do. I didn’t know his family had all this money. He was just Bill to me. But now I’m playing with the idea of making up to his brother, kidding myself that I could fall in love with him. It’s time I woke up to myself. I had a good look in the glass just now, and it’s not very flattering. Rather an ugly woman, not so young, who had been genuinely in love with one brother planning to fall in love conveniently with the other brother who is heir to the property. But there’s nothing in the mirror to show that the trick would come off. I’d probably just be making a complete fool of myself, as I have been for the last few months.
The worst part is that there’s just a tiny fragment of sincerity which makes the whole thing so insidious. I did like Alan when we met nine years ago. I’ve been looking back through this diary and I see that I thought then that he was something rather terrific. I still think of him like that, and I’d like to meet him again. But that’s nothing to do with being in love with him. You can’t possibly be in love with somebody you only met for one day nine years ago when you were head over heels in love with his brother.
There’s no way out of this one. I can’t meet Alan. There’s too much intimacy in the explanations that I’d have to make to him to tell him why I’m here at all to make it possible to go on with him here as master and servant, or even to go on as neutral friends. I’d want him to fall in love with me and marry me, I know I would. If he did, I think I’d be unhappy for the remainder of my life, because I’d know it was all phoney and wrong. I’d make him unhappy, too. If he didn’t, then there’d be shame and confusion all round, and everything here would be spoiled, and I’d have to go away. And the mirror says that’s probably exactly what would happen.
There’s no way out of this one.
October 17th. I asked for a day off and went for a long walk alone all round Coombargana today, getting back about six o’clock. It’s such a lovely place, and I’m so happy to have seen it all. They’re shearing now, finishing on Friday, and everybody’s down at the shearing shed in a mad rush. I hardly saw anyone at all, all day.
I wanted a day’s tramp to clear my mind and make quite sure that I was doing the right thing, because it’s one of those things that you can’t undo when once you’ve done it. It’s so permanent. But now I know I’m right. After a year like this I don’t think that I’d ever be happy anywhere else but here, and it’s not possible for me to stay here any longer now. The only thing I could do now would be to run away, go to Ballarat on some excuse, get on an aeroplane and fly away to England or somewhere and start again. I think I’d rather stay here.
I’ve got Aunt Ellen’s knock-out drops, a whole bottle of them, still. They must be good, because the name was always cropping up in the Seattle papers; they’re what all the film stars turn to when they’re through. The very highest recommendation. Then all the people in the Junkers will be paid for.
Alan’s ship gets in to Fremantle on the Friday, so I think I’ll do it on the Sunday night. Everything will be over and done with by the time he gets home on the Saturday, and the excitement of his homecoming will put it all out of their minds. It’ll be a bit of a shock to them, of course. I’m sorry about that because they’ve been so kind to me, but in a day or two Alan will be home and everything will be forgotten. Old people get a bit like children; their griefs don’t last very long.
October 23rd. I went walking round the garden this afternoon looking at things and enjoying them, and in the greenhouse Cyril had a lot
of azaleas in pots. I picked out a big red one just coming into bloom and took it into the house and asked her if I could put it in Alan’s room. She said I could, so I put the flower pot in a dark blue jar and took it up and put it on his table. It’s going to look lovely in a few days’ time. I hope they keep it watered.
There the diary ends. The azalea was still upon my table, in full bloom.
TEN
THE fire was practically dead and the dawn was light behind me at the window. I closed the diaries, and arranged them in a little pile under the table. I stood up stiffly and reached out for her attaché case to put the volumes back in it, and as I did so her bank books caught my eye. I wondered dully what on earth I ought to do about those, for she had considerable sums of money in Seattle and in England.
When things like this happen there’s just nothing to be done about it; even suffering itself is a mere waste of time. I crossed to the window and opened one of the casements, and the cold air came streaming in to the warm room around me like a shower. Before me lay our property, a few ewes in the ewe paddock moving over the wet grass in the first glints of the sun, the river running quietly between. This was the view that she had known and loved, as Bill and I had loved it, all unconsciously. She could have been mistress of Coombargana twice over, but it didn’t work out that way.
I turned from the window after a long time, and took my sticks, and went out of my room into the gallery. The house was dead quiet except for the loud ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall; nobody was yet astir. I moved slowly down the stairs, and as I went I wondered a little at the decency of my home, after all that I had read during the night. Even into this quiet place the war had reached like the tentacle of an octopus and had touched this girl and brought about her death. Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it’s all over.