The Ladies of Missalonghi

  Quite unaware how alluring she looked, she smiled up at him and lifted out her arms until the small buff nipples of her slight breasts just rode clear of the water. “Aren’t you coming in too?” she asked in the tones of a professional temptress. “There’s plenty of room.”

  He needed no further encouragement, and appeared to forget his strictures about the production of suds, so assiduous was he in making sure every part of her was thoroughly explored with his hand and the bar of soap; nor did she think that his thoroughness had much to do with Buttercup. She submitted with purring pleasure, but then insisted upon returning the service. And so bath-time occupied the best part of an hour.

  However, over breakfast he got down to business. “There must be a registry office in Katoomba, so we’ll go on in and get a marriage licence,” he said.

  “If I go only as far as Missalonghi with you and then walk on into Byron and catch the train, I imagine I’ll get to Katoomba almost as quickly as you will in your cart,” said Missy. “I must see Mother, I want to shop for food, and I have to take a book back to the library.”

  He looked suddenly alarmed. “You’re not by any chance planning a big wedding, are you?”

  She laughed. “No! Just you and me will do very well. I left a note for Mother, though, so I want to make sure she’s not too upset. And my dearest friend works in the library – would you mind if she came to our wedding?”

  “Not if you want her there. Though I warn you, if I can persuade the powers that be, I’d like to get it over and done with today.”

  “In Katoomba?”

  “Yes.”

  Married in brown! Wouldn’t it? Missy sighed. “All right, if you’ll promise me something.”

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “When I die, will you bury me in a scarlet lace dress? Or if you can’t find that, any colour but brown!”

  He looked surprised. “Don’t you like brown? I’ve never seen you wear anything else.”

  “I wear brown because I’m poor but respectable. Brown doesn’t show the dirt, it never goes in or out of fashion, it never fades, and it’s never cheap or common or trollopy.”

  That made him laugh, but then he went back to business. “Do you have a birth certificate?”

  “Yes, in my bag.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  Her reaction was extraordinary; she went red, shifted around on her chair, clenched her teeth. “Can’t you just use Missy? It’s what I’ve always been called, honestly.”

  “Sooner or later your real name is going to have to come out.” He grinned. “Come on, make a clean breast of it! It can’t be that bad, surely.”

  “Missalonghi.”

  He burst out laughing. “You’re pulling my leg!”

  “I wish I were.”

  “The same as your house?”

  “Exactly the same. My father thought it was the most beautiful word in the world, and he loathed the Hurlingford habit of using Latin names. Mother wanted to call me Camilla, but he insisted on Missalonghi.”

  “You poor little bitch!”

  This time Missy’s feet experienced no trouble mounting the steps to the front verandah of Missalonghi; she banged on the door as if she was a stranger.

  Drusilla answered, and looked at her daughter as if she really was a stranger. Definitely there was nothing the matter with her! In fact, she looked better than in all her life.

  “I know what you’ve been doing, my girl,” she said as she led the way down the hall to the kitchen. “I wish you’d stuck to reading about it, but I daresay that’s crying over spilt milk now, eh? Are you back for good?”

  “No.”

  Octavia came hobbling, and received a kiss on either cheek from the sparkling Missy.

  “Are you all right?” she quavered, clutching at Missy’s hands convulsively.

  “Of course she’s all right!” said Drusilla bracingly. “Look at her, for heaven’s sake!”

  Missy smiled at her mother lovingly; how odd, that only now the cord binding her to Missalonghi was broken did she understand the depth of her love for Drusilla. But maybe now she had opportunity to stand back and see Drusilla’s worries, heartaches, difficulties.

  “I thank you very much, Mother,” she said, “for according me the dignity of assuming I know what I’m doing.”

  “At going on thirty-four, Missy, if you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s no hope for you. You tried it our way for long enough, and who’s to say your way won’t be better?”

  “Very true. But what you’re telling me now is a far cry from dictating the kind of books I might read, and the colour of my clothes.”

  “You put up with it tamely enough.”

  “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “You get the government you deserve, Missy, always.”

  “If you can admit that, Mother, don’t you think it’s more than time you and the aunts and all the other manless Hurlingford women banded together to do something about the glaring injustices and inequalities in this family?”

  “Ever since you told us how Billy has lied to us, Missy, I have been thinking along those lines, I assure you. And I have been talking to Julia and Cornelia too. But there is no law that compels a man – or a woman – to leave property equally divided between sons and daughters. In my book, the worst offenders of all have been Hurlingford women with money to leave – nothing goes to their daughters, not even a house on five acres! So I have always felt there was no chance for us, when our own female kind stand so solidly behind Hurlingford men. It is sad, but it is true.”

  “You’re speaking of the Hurlingford women who will lose a great deal if you win. I’m speaking of our fellow sufferers, and I know you can get them moving if you really try. You do have legal grounds to seek compensation for those unpaid dividends, and I think you should institute proceedings against Uncle Herbert to compel him to disclose the full details of his various investment schemes.” Missy shot a demure look at Drusilla from under her lashes. “After all, Mother, you were the one who said it – you get the government you deserve.”

  She walked from Missalonghi into Byron. What a beautiful, beautiful day! For the first time in her life she felt really well, the bursting out of one’s skin sensation she had read about but never experienced; and for the first time in her life she was looking forward to living a long life. That is, until she remembered that the full measure of her happiness depended upon one John Smith, and John Smith only expected to put up with her for a year at most. She had lied and cheated and stolen to feel this happy, and she wasn’t at all sorry for it. The Alicias of this world might snap their fingers and conjure up the men of their choice, but no use pretending a man like John Smith would have looked sideways at a Missy Wright, snap though she would. And yet she knew she could make John Smith the happiest man – if not in the world – at least in the town of Byron. She had better! Because when her year was up, he had to want her to live so badly he was prepared to forgive her the stealing and the cheating and the lying.

  Time was getting on, and she had to make sure she caught the eleven o’clock train into Katoomba, where John Smith had promised to be waiting for her at the station. Groceries she could put off until tomorrow, but somehow she had a feeling Una could not be postponed. To the library it was, then.

  A magnificent motorcar was purring sedately down the middle of Byron Street as Missy hurried along in her brown linen dress, inconspicuous as ever. Which was more than could be said for the motorcar, also brown; it had collected an admiring audience down both sides of the road, locals and visitors alike. Glancing at it in amusement, Missy decided the chauffeur had a definite edge over the two occupants of the tonneau when it came to haughty aloofness. The chauffeur she knew from hearsay; a handsome fellow with more love for cutting a fine figure than hard work, and a reputation for treating his many women badly. The occupants of the tonneau she knew from bitter experience; Alicia and Uncle Billy.

  Alicia’s eyes met hers. The next
moment the sumptuous car had slewed sideways into the kerb, and Alicia and Uncle Billy were tumbling out well ahead of the startled chauffeur’s attempt to open a door for them.

  “What do you mean, Missy Wright, taking Aunt Cornelia’s shares and selling them out from under our noses?” demanded Alicia without preamble, two bright red spots burning in her alabaster cheeks.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” asked Missy coolly.

  “Because it’s none of your damned interfering business!” barked Sir William, stiff with outrage.

  “It’s as much my business as it is yours, Uncle Billy. I knew where I could get Aunt Cornelia ten pounds a share, and what use were they to her when you’d led her to believe they were quite worthless? Aunt Cornelia badly needs an operation on her feet she couldn’t afford because, Alicia, I gather you refused to give her either time off or a little extra money. So I sold her shares for a hundred pounds, and now she can have her operation. If you wish to terminate her employment, at least she has a sum in the bank to tide her over until she can find another position – I’m sure there are shops in Katoomba just dying to engage someone of her calibre. You might like to know that I have also sold Aunt Julia’s shares, and Aunt Octavia’s, and Mother’s.”

  “What?” squawked Sir William.

  “All of them? You sold all of them?” faltered Alicia, the red spots in her cheeks draining away in a second.

  “I most certainly did.” Missy stared at her cousin with a malice she had not known she possessed. “Why, Alicia, don’t tell me forty little shares in the great big Byron Bottle Company were enough to tip the balance!”

  For a confused moment Alicia fancied Missy had grown horns and a tail. “What’s the matter with you?” she cried. “You’ve got to be off your head! Soiling my dress, saying insulting things about me in front of my family, and now selling that family into ruin! You ought to be locked up!”

  “I only wish what I did had resulted in your being locked up. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I must dash. I have an appointment to be married.” And Missy walked away with her nose in the air.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” announced Alicia, and suited action to words by flopping against Uncle Herbert’s window, the one full of work clothes.

  Sir William seized the opportunity to put his arms around her, head turned to call for assistance from his chauffeur; but somehow as they supported Alicia between them back to the car, it was the chauffeur’s ungloved fingers that managed to ascertain the delicious size and shape of Alicia’s nipples. By this time the crowd had swelled to include all of Uncle Herbert’s sons and grandsons, so Sir William dumped Alicia unceremoniously on the seat and ordered the chauffeur to drive off immediately.

  When her prospective father-in-law attempted to loosen her stays by lifting up her dress and groping inside her fine lawn drawers, Alicia revived in a hurry.

  “Stop that, you lecherous old man!” she snapped, forgetting the need to be tactful, and leaned forward to press her cheeks between her palms. “Oh, lord, I feel awful!”

  “Would you like to go home now we don’t have to drive out to Missalonghi?” asked Sir William, red-faced.

  “Yes, I would.” She lay back against the seat and let the cool air fan her skin, and finally relaxed a little, and sighed. Thank heavens! She was beginning to feel better.

  Right in front of her but on the other side of the glass that separated the tonneau from the open driving compartment, the chauffeur’s proudly shaped head sat upon his strong smooth neck; what lovely ears he had for a man, small and set right against his skull. He was handsome, as dark as Missy, and as alien. It took a brawny man to heft her around as easily as he had, and his hands on her breasts – she felt her nipples pop up at the memory of them, and squirmed achingly on the seat. What was his name? Frank? Yes, Frank. Frank Pellagrino. He used to work at the bottling plant until he got the post as Uncle Billy’s chauffeur.

  A sidelong glance at Sir William revealed him sitting bolt upright, a very worried man.

  “Do those forty shares make so much difference to us?”

  “All the difference in the world, now we know Richard Hurlingford sold out a month ago.” Sir William sighed. “And it explains why the mystery buyer thinks he has sufficient clout to call an extraordinary meeting tomorrow.”

  “The little fool!” snarled Alicia. “How could Missy be such a little fool?”

  “I think we’re the fools, Alicia. I for one never even noticed Missy Wright, but I see now that I should have. And been more attentive to all the ladies of Missalonghi. Did you take in how she looked this morning? As if she’d got to the cream ahead of every other cat in the district. And did she say she had an appointment to be married, or was that my imagination?”

  Alicia snorted. “Oh, she said it, but I suspect it was her imagination.” A more urgent grievance came to mind. “Silly old Auntie Cornie!” she muttered savagely. “Oh, how I wish I could have had the satisfaction this morning of sacking her when she came prattling about her shares and the time she was going to take off for her operation!”

  “Well, why didn’t you sack her?”

  “Because I can’t, that’s why! My hat shop may well end up my only source of income, if things at the plant keep going from bad to worse. And I’ll never find anyone else half so good to run the salon end of it, even if I paid them ten times what I pay Auntie Cornie. She’s – indispensable.”

  “You’d better pray she never realises it, or she’ll ask for ten times what you currently pay her.” A tinge of satisfaction coloured his voice as he added, “And then, my dear, if you can’t afford it, you’ll have to go into the shop as your own sales dame. You’d be even better at it than Cornie.”

  “I can’t do that!” gasped Alicia. “It would ruin my social standing! It’s one thing to be the creative genius behind a business of that nature, but quite another to have to peddle my wares in person.” She tugged at the lapels of her pale pink coat, her lovely face set into the lines of sullen discontent its construction made fatally easy. “Oh, Uncle Billy, suddenly I feel as if I’m walking on ice, and it’s going to crack any minute, and I’m going to go under!”

  “We’re in a pickle, it’s true. But don’t give up, we’re not finished yet. Pounds to peanuts, when the mystery buyer turns up to his extraordinary meeting tomorrow, he’ll turn out to be some self-made yokel easily manipulated by his betters. And for that sort of exercise, you will come in very handy.”

  Alicia did not reply, merely flicked him a glance of mingled doubt and dislike; her eyes reverted to the back of the chauffeur’s head, a far nicer prospect than Sir William’s choleric countenance.

  When Missy walked into the library she fully expected to find Una, even though it was not one of Una’s days. And sure enough, there was Una.

  “Oh, Missy, I’m so glad to see you!” she cried, jumping up. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “I have a few surprises for you too,” said Missy.

  “Wait right there, I’ll be back in two flicks of a dead lamb’s tail.” Una vanished into the tea cubicle, and came out bearing a large white box and hatbox, each tied up with white ribbon. “Happy anything, dearest Missy.”

  They smiled at each other in complete understanding and great affection.

  “It’s a scarlet lace dress and hat,” said Missy.

  “It’s a scarlet lace dress and hat,” agreed Una.

  “I shall wear it to my wedding.”

  “John Smith! You’ve picked exactly the right man.”

  “I had to resort to trickery and deception to get him.”

  “If you couldn’t get him any other way, why not?”

  “I told him I was dying of heart trouble.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “That,” said Missy, “is splitting hairs. Can you come to my wedding?”

  “I’d love to, but no.”

  “Why?”

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “Because of your divorce? But we
’re not getting married in a church, so who can object?”

  “It has nothing to do with divorce, darling. I don’t think John Smith would appreciate a face from the past at his wedding.”

  That made sense, therefore Missy left it alone. And there was nothing really left to say; her gratitude was quite beyond words, her need to go quickly was great. Una stood watching her painfully, as if with her she was taking something so precious the quality of Una’s life would suffer ever afterwards – and that something was not so tangible as a scarlet lace dress and hat. On an impulse she didn’t understand, Missy returned to the desk, leaned over it and put her arm about Una’s shoulders, her lips against Una’s cheek. So frail, so cold, so weightless!

  “Goodbye, Una.”

  “Goodbye, my best and dearest friend. Be happy!”

  Missy made the train with a minute to spare, and saw John Smith on the platform in Katoomba before the train came to a standstill. Thank God for that. He hadn’t changed his mind during his slow amble along the highway, then. And in fact when he saw her alight from her carriage, he even looked quite glad to see her!

  “They’ll issue us with a licence and marry us today,” he said, taking Missy’s boxes from her.

  “And I don’t have to be married in brown,” said Missy, retrieving her boxes. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll pop into the platform toilet and change into my wedding dress.”

  “Wedding dress?” He looked down at his grey flannel work shirt and his old moleskin trousers in comical dismay.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s not traditional. In fact, I guarantee that you’re going to look a great deal more appropriate than I am.”

  Her dress fitted perfectly. What an eye for size Una had! And what a wonderful colour! Her eyes swam with the strain of looking at it. Where on earth had Una managed to find a garment so elegant in style yet so wanton in colour?