Bittersweet (36 page)

“When I’m a deputy matron and can afford to splurge.”

“Affording to splurge might be arranged,” he murmured, “but I think I’ll save what I have to say until after dinner. That way, if you walk out on me, at least your tummy will be full.”

“It’s a bargain. What are we eating?”

“Crayfish and crab meat in an oriental sauce to start, then roast baby chicken.”

A menu to which Edda did full justice, consumed with curiosity though she was. Afterward, settled in the library, he produced a sheaf of papers and waved them at her. “Congratulations, my dear,” Rawson Schiller said. “You passed all three subjects with high distinction.”

Stupefied, all she could find to say was “What?”

“I had those papers set and then had them marked by the chaps who set and mark the Medicine II papers at Melbourne University,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.

“Medicine II?”

“Yes. I saw no point in going ahead with my idea until I had discovered exactly what standard of knowledge you already possessed from your nursing career, so I entered into a conspiracy of sorts with some friends of mine up at the university in the Faculty of Medicine. Melbourne has an admirable record when it comes to admitting women students into Medicine, whereas Sydney, strangled by a Scottish faculty, has always been disgracefully opposed to women. Fascinating to think that senseless national bigotries belonging to the other end of the world should have so marred a whole university faculty as important as Medicine, yet that has happened, to Sydney’s lasting shame. But I digress.”

Edda seemed to have gone beyond listening properly, her eyes fixed on Rawson’s face with a look in them he had never seen: of an unbearable pain unexpectedly resurrected, a pain against which she had no defences.

So he hurried on, anxious to destroy the root cause of that pain, knowing he could — if she consented. “In February of next year, Edda, when university goes up, you have a place as a student in Medicine III allocated to you on the basis of these examinations. Here, in Melbourne. Commencing as a third-year student, you would have only four years of Medicine to graduate, which you would in November of 1935. After a year of internship, you would be given your licence to practise at the end of 1936. Think of it! That would make you a qualified doctor at the age of thirty-one, with years and years of fruitful work ahead of you.”

Her body twisted convulsively, she began to get up, face a mask of terrified panic.

“No, don’t!” he cried. “Hear me out, Edda, please!”

“I can’t take charity, especially from a dear friend.”

“This is not charity. It comes at a considerable price.”

That stilled her, smoothed away the lines of anguish. “It comes at a considerable price? What price?”

“I need a wife,” he said flatly. “That’s my price. Marry me and you can do Medicine, buy an electric-blue or a jade-green dress, wear furs — there’s no limit, I’m a very rich man. But I need a wife. Did I have a wife, I’d already be in parliament. Men my age who are bachelors are suspect, even if their reputations are unsullied. But I couldn’t find her, Edda, I just couldn’t. Until I met you. Sophisticated, intelligent, educated, understanding — even humane! For what it’s worth, you’d be Lady Schiller. Most women would kill for it, but it doesn’t impress you, does it?”

Little trills of laughter began, a stream of small bubbles gathering speed and volume until finally Edda howled — or did she cry? Even she wasn’t sure.

“It struck me too,” Rawson went on, determined to give voice to all his ideas while he had the courage, “that I find you very alluring. Perhaps at some time in the future, we might try for a child. I don’t know whether I could manage, but later on, when we are at peace with each other — and always provided that you were willing too — I would like to try. Nannies and nursery help would make it easier —” He thumped his brow with his fist. “I’m getting ahead of myself, these are things for the future, not now! Edda, marry me, please!”

What was there to think about, up to and including that child? “Yes, Rawson, I’ll marry you,” she said huskily.

He came to lift her hand, kiss it reverently.

“A marriage of convenience,” she said, clasping his fingers and smiling up at him. “I can’t deny, Rawson, that I’m accepting your proposal for one reason only — it gives me the desire of my heart, a degree in Medicine.”

“I am quite aware of that; but you wouldn’t accept were I the sort of man who repels you. Our blossoming friendship counts for much, don’t try to deny it,” he said, stiffly stilted.

“How strange! We’ve gone all uncomfortable,” Edda said.

“Well, it’s not exactly a traditional proposal of marriage. Very bleak and bare!”

“Then let’s talk logistics,” she said, “and do sit down again. Do we have a grand wedding, or a quiet wedding, or a secret one?”

“I incline to secrecy, for a few reasons.” He finally sat. “Would you like to hear them?”

“Please.”

“Really, because I doubt a quiet wedding is possible. I have living parents, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, three nieces and three nephews, plus the usual plethora of aunts, uncles and cousins. They would have to come to a
quiet
wedding.”

“I’m nearly as bad — three sisters, one brother-in-law, one sane parent and a parent with pre-senile dementia, two men who aren’t brothers-in-law but would
have
to be invited, and at least a dozen women who couldn’t possibly be ignored. That, for me, would be
quiet
, compounded by the fact that my father would insist on marrying us in person in his church,” she wailed.

Two pairs of startled eyes locked on each other. “Dearest Edda, this is awful! Your father is a minister of religion?”

“Church of England, an important New South Wales rural parish of huge area, and until the Depression came along, very rich in C of E terms.” She giggled. “Archbishops? Bishops? I know them by the score, and they may truthfully be said to have dandled an infant me on their purple-clad knees.”

“My God, Edda, I knew you were eligible, but not
this
eligible!”

“The only thing about me that your family will be able to object to, Rawson, is my lack of money. My antecedents and my background are all that they should be.” She looked uncomfortable. “As for a grand wedding, dear Rawson, my father
cannot
afford it.”

“A grand wedding is not, nor ever would be, a consideration,” Rawson said, sweeping grand weddings under the tattiest old carpet his imagination could conjure up. “No, my dearest Edda, given our mature ages, I think we choose a secret wedding. Our families may feel rebuffed, but the scalpel cuts as keenly to either side of the central aisle. Let all the introductions and opinions and spats take place after our wedding, which I suggest occurs in one month’s time at a registry office here in Melbourne.”

“Mordialloc?” she asked.

He looked blank. “Mordialloc? Why there?”

“I like the name.”

“You are allowed to respond to as many names as charm your ear, my quirky friend, but we’ll still marry in an obscure office right here in the heart of Melbourne city,” Rawson said firmly. “Then we’ll take a small ocean liner from Sydney to California, in which legendary place we’ll honeymoon until the New Year of 1932. While we’re away, let the storm break — private as well as public. Blood relatives, friends, colleagues and enemies will all hear on the same day. Shock, horror and consternation will reign. But will we care, cosseted by the same hands as pamper film stars? No! Reality will be postponed until our return.” Suddenly he looked naughtily boyish. “Then, it’s face the music time! Only our work will sustain us — you at university, I in politics.”

“How much you pack into that one word, politics! I hope I’m a satisfactory wife,” she said, assailed by qualms.

“Darling Edda, in you, I intend to show this country what the wife of a politician
should
be, and isn’t. You’re not shy, you have
a mine of conversation, your appearance is stunning, and when it’s discovered that you have your own professional career, it will frighten the daylights out of my colleagues. When a journalist asks you for an opinion, he’ll get it — and be impressed.” He drew a breath. “Both my brothers married well in terms of the right background and adequate wifely fortunes, but said wives are dreary, uneducated and, depending upon the enterprise, sometimes a real handicap to their husbands. You will
never
be that! Even on its periphery, you’ll relish the cut-and-thrust of political life. I won’t hamper your medical career, but I will ask you for help.”

“And I’ll give it gladly,” she said warmly, smiling. “Oh, to think that in five years I’ll be registered to practise Medicine! But under my own name. I pity the poor patient whose appointment is to see Lady Schiller! That, I’ll keep for your world.” A look up. “How long does it take to arrange a secret marriage?”

“A month. You’ll continue to stay downstairs until my ring is on your finger — a ruby for your engagement ring?”

“Do you know, I think I’d prefer an emerald? Anyone from Corunda thinks rubies are old hat.”

“An emerald it shall be. Tomorrow morning I’ll introduce you to George Winyates and Karl Einmann, my secretaries, upon whose discretion you can utterly rely. They’ll know our plans, but no one else. They’ll arrange accounts for you at all the places you might shop regularly, including bookshops. The accounts will be temporarily in your own name, but after the knot is tied, they’ll be for Lady Schiller.”

“Lady Edda,” she said dreamily, and laughed. “It sounds — oh, I don’t know, unreal.”

“It is. You’re
not
Lady Edda, you’re Lady Schiller. Women who tack their Christian name onto the ‘Lady’ are the daughters of dukes or marquesses. The wives of knights don’t have that privilege.”

“How extraordinary! I’m learning already.”

“You must have fox furs and sables, but never mink,” he said, pulling a face. “Mink is coarse to the touch and too Hollywood.”

“Medicine!” she exclaimed, telling him where her heart was, and how little she would value furs alongside her profession. “Rawson, I can’t thank you enough for this chance, and I say that from the very core of my soul. I’ll go for surgery, abdominal and general. I’d like neurosurgery, but I’m a little too old, and it’s too demanding a field,” A different thought entered her mind. “Will we live in this flat?”

“Have you any objection?”

“Not at all. I’d just like to know.”

“There is a suite of four rooms beyond my own bedroom suite, and I thought of turning it over to you.” The big nose and chin that saved him for handsomeness endeavoured to meet across his mouth; he pursed his lips, then smiled. “I snore notoriously, so I won’t ask you to share my bed. You would have a bedroom, dressing room, bathroom and a sitting room, and I would ask you to speak with the interior decorators who do my work, tell them what you want. They will obey your every request. I thought you might like to use the guest flat downstairs as your medical refuge, thus keeping your studies separate from our life together.”

“Wouldn’t the other tenants object?”

“They’d better not,” he said crisply. “I own the building.”

Her head was whirling, a combination of tiredness — she had spent a large part of today walking — and shock.

“Downstairs to bed,” he instructed, pulling her out of her chair. “Come up for breakfast at eight, then we’ll get down to the real business. And, Edda?”

“Yes?” she asked, smiling up at him muzzily.

“I adore you. Perhaps not in the way a man adores his wife of choice, but it’s sincere and ardent. I do adore you.”

And if only, thought Edda, climbing into bed, he loved me the way a man does love a wife! Well, that cannot be. But so many compensations! A degree in Medicine, and Lady Schiller the political hostess. How very strange and wonderful!

It sounded like a fairytale, and so everybody would regard it, from her family clear through to his, and the whole world in between. Like Kitty, another fairytale romance ending in marriage to a rich, handsome, busy and successful man. And look at her, with a huge empty house and two miscarriages to show for nearly two years of wedded bliss. Oh, Kitty!

What will my marriage bring? Edda asked herself, certain that its pains would outweigh its pleasures. Except for Medicine.
That
was worth any price the gods might ask her to pay. At least she knew Rawson’s secret, she had some bargaining power; Kitty had somehow wound up owning no power whatsoever, and Edda was too modern in her thinking to deem that a good thing, even if it was tradition. There was no question of her, Edda, ever using Rawson’s secret against him to achieve some desire of her own. He wouldn’t renege
on his offer to put her through Medicine, the only factor that might have tempted her.

Busy-brained Edda, she couldn’t leave it alone; her mind alighted upon Rawson’s expressed wish to produce a child — now when would it be easiest for her to go through a pregnancy? Never, she concluded, sighing — which also meant, any time at all. If he did quicken her, she would carry the child, go right on with her work until her water broke, then be back at work a few days later. Why not? Woman used to be expected to do that — what had changed except social attitudes? Yes, thought Edda, I will cross that bridge when I come to it, and take it in my stride. I have to! I am a twentieth-century woman, I have the chances my ancestors only dreamed of. And I will do it comfortably, because I will be married to a wonderful man who carries a terrible burden.

How lovely it would be to tell her sisters! Or, if but one were possible, to tell Grace. How odd! Grace, existing in straitened circumstances, beset by all the worries of a widow from fatherless children to lack of income, yet it was this selfsame Grace she yearned to tell? The full sister, yes, but also the twin. Kitty would oppose the marriage, knowing the pain it was bound to bring; Tufts would consent but never condone it, seeing the element of sale in it; and Grace would deplore it from jealousy and narrowness of mind. Yet she, Edda, hungered to confront them with it
before
it happened. Somehow to hit them in the face with it afterward felt like treachery.