Paper Daisies (34 page)

Ben

‘
B
en?' Her eyes are wild: a small creature captured in flight.

Howell looks at me through the open door, just for second, a blank, unknowable stare, before I take Berylda by the waist and down the hall, down the staircase, away from him, down through the foyer that is now quiet as a tomb. I tell her only: ‘I know now what you have suffered. I know what your sister has suffered by him.'

She says nothing. She seems dazed, in a dream, as I carry her along with me, her feet barely touching the floor. I am barely here myself, after all that I have just heard. Who
is
Alec Howell? What man does these things? And what for? He meant to compel her into marriage to him? If only she had told me. Why didn't she tell me? But how could she have told me? All questions leading back to his blank, unknowable stare. A creature unidentifiable, in form or purpose.

As we step through the main doors and onto the portico outside, I look back to see if he follows. But there is no one, apart from a dustman sweeping the tiles behind us. The roan waits on the lawn across the drive, where I left him under the cedar there. The western sky is slashed amber and vermillion, a flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos sailing through it, calling out the end of the day.

‘Rebel, it is you,' she says from her trance as we walk towards the horse, towards the road; she says to me: ‘I left my basket in his room.'

I ask her: ‘Does it matter?' I will retrieve it for her now if it's important that she have it.

‘No. I don't suppose it does matter.' Her reply is a whisper; and then she asks the sky: ‘Do you know what I have done?'

‘Yes,' I tell her. I know that she has done it; I know from all that I heard through the keyhole of the door, I know it somehow by holding her, too, as I am still holding her beside me now, and even in the cold shock of it all, what she has done seems somehow only natural. Horrifying. Harrowing. But natural. A logical correction of order. She has sought to crush a catastrophic force that by some trick of chance shaped itself into the figure of a man, one that would probably struggle to exist at all if women were considered to be equally worthy of life themselves; if Orientals were considered to be human at all. How can I blame her for what she has done? How could anyone blame
her? What blame is there in nature? I tell her: ‘I don't judge you for it. I never will.'

‘I did not ever mean for you … I did not want …' Her voice drifts away. She looks out over the field of tall wallaby grass that stretches alongside the road below us here, her blue eyes searching the blond river, her face washed of any colour it had, and now she clutches my hand at her waist, fingernails sharp in my palm, her words barely breath at all: ‘But I want to see him die.'

I never want to see him again; his stare remains with me: the stare of nothing; no one.

She says into this nothing, her voice returned: ‘Sometime tonight I will see him die. I have to.'

‘Yes,' I tell her. I am her accomplice now; I will not leave her side.

I am the road for Berylda Jones.

Berylda

W
e might be any two friends, walking on a Thursday afternoon, along the cartway at the back of Glynarthen. I look into the faces of the dairy cows at the fence line; they are brown cows, russet in this sunset light; their grass is bright; they chew contentedly. And I shall see Alec Howell die tonight, if anything like luck allows.

I must keep myself from running back towards the hospital, to hover, to watch and wait. I must keep myself from shouting out with triumph what I have done – at last. Remind myself a thousand times inside each step that it is crucial I remain contained, that I walk along this cartway with Ben Wilberry as if nothing else on earth is occurring.

Ben Wilberry walks with me. I can scarcely believe that he does, and yet I do believe it. Now. Would it have made a difference to today if I had believed in him yesterday? Had I understood the bargain we two had already made? Perhaps, but then love might have robbed me of this reckoning; this revenge. It sings through me. I look up at Ben as we walk, my hand resting in the crook of his arm, taking strength from him even now, and I want to thank him: without him, without his having wandered up to Bellevue on New Year's Eve, I would not have been able to get away to Hill End, I would not have found the means to end Alec Howell. I would not have found the courage. But how can I possibly thank him for this? For helping me to damnation, and bringing himself with me. He might change his mind about me, regret his involvement yet.

That is, if Alec Howell dies. Panic takes me. How do I know I have poisoned him at all? How do I know Ah Ling didn't give me a bottle of snake oil? Dragon tears. What is that? Nothing more than castor oil; the worthless word of a Chinaman.

I clutch Ben's arm reflexively, and he bends to me: ‘Don't worry. Please, Berylda. I will never betray you. I'm sorry you felt you had no other choice. I'm sorry you felt you couldn't tell me what he was doing to you. Whatever happens now, I will stand beside you. In fact, I insist on doing so. You're not alone with this any more, hm? It's the worst shame that you ever were.'

‘Hm.' How does one thank another for that? When I have stepped far enough away from this black place, I will find the words. I will marvel at this moment, at this plain fact of love for me, this loyalty, but now it is all I can do to continue to put one foot in front of the other.

‘You must be tired,' he says. ‘Why don't you get up on Rebel and I'll lead you the rest of the way?'

Tired as I know I must be, I shake my head. The beat of my boots upon the ground is all that is left of my resolve. I am suspended somewhere above fatigue, above time. Nothing else will happen until Alec Howell is dead.

He must die: he killed Libby.

He killed Libby?

I can scarcely believe this, either. But it is true. I will see the way he recoiled from me at the question for all that is left to me of life: it is true. As true as it is that I am his murderer now –
please
. Let every footstep make it so. I am his killer, and I am glad.

And careful. Across these final hours and all that is left to me of life, every word and every action must conceal what I have done. Not for my sake – I would take the noose proudly – but for Gret, for Ben, I cannot make one slip. No one will pay for this but me. I feel the stones beneath my boots: feel the dimensions of every one. Make every step a step towards the light.

Bellevue is lit up like a city when we see it; lit up like a fat cigar forbidding the fall of night. My stomach lurches. How I hate this house. But my hatred is a dull, slow thing. Now.

I break away from Ben as we approach the yard, and I make my voice ask him: ‘Could you have Buckley ready Sal with the buggy again, please? I will need it again. Soon. Don't let him argue with you.'

I cannot make my voice explain my rationale: if things go as expected, I will need the buggy in order to return to the hospital when I am informed that Alec Howell ails there, or to take him there myself after a collapse at home, however things might unfold tonight. And yet Ben nods his understanding.

‘Don't worry,' he assures again. ‘Whatever you need, it will be done.'

I glance back at him as we part, as he heads off towards the stable drive with Rebel. How is it possible that we are such friends? I must keep myself from running to him, from shouting out my gratitude.

I step up the front path, across the verandah of this place of misery, but just as I reach the door, it's flung wide and Cosmo Thompson is before me, grinning: ‘Come in, come in from the cold, would you? I've just got a fire going. I don't know how you live here at all – midsummer and it's bloody freezing.'

I follow him down the east hallway, unsure if I have stepped into a dream.

He turns back to me as he strides on up the hall: ‘Hungry? Whether you are or not, I think I might force you to have a bite of something. You didn't eat your lunch.'

I would ask him why he is suddenly being so oddly nice to me, but I suppose it is at Ben's insistence; I must suppose Cosmo Thompson also knows something of what I have done. Either that, or Lewis Carroll has devised a new and macabre fabulation just for me. I lose my sense of direction; confusion spins around me, as he continues past my bedroom, and Gret's, and out to the rear parlour.

Where Mrs Weston leaps up from the settee there, rushing at me, and confusion spins again. I am relieved to see her here, of course, as was my plan – that she be fetched for Gret. But does she know whatever Mr Thompson knows, too? I can't imagine what my face must look like as I fight down each of my emotions all at once.

‘Berylda. Oh my dear girl,' she is saying. ‘Where have you been?' Her lavender velvet embracing me, I watch a rose petal fall to the floor from the vase behind her, a little white boat floating down onto the timber zigzags of the parquet floor. ‘I was beginning to worry. Greta, too. Where did you go, my dear? You didn't go into town looking for me, did you? I came as soon as your maid –'

‘No.' I sigh; I have to look away, to swallow this wave of relief: Mrs Weston does not know a thing. I pretend some exasperation with my sister: ‘Poor Greta, she's as muddled as a box of old buttons at the moment, or she must have misheard me. I only went into the hospital, to let Uncle Alec know we'd arrived back and –'

‘Poor dear Greta,' Mr Thompson interjects and I hold my breath for what might issue from that wild tongue next. ‘Mad. That girl has been completely mad all day,' he says authoritatively. ‘I suspect she is mostly mad most of the time – judging from her work. I've spent the afternoon going through her drawings out here, in the chest.' He points to the cane trunk she keeps her favourite pieces in, under the table tennis set and quoits that never get used. ‘She said I could – to look for a portfolio amongst them all – and it is my considered opinion that your sister is one hundred and three percent off her sweet little kadoova. It is the creative's prerogative, and all kadoovaishness is relative to goodness, isn't it? She is rather good, isn't she? Don't you agree, Mrs Weston?'

Mrs Weston blinks at him askance; I'm sure I do too. She takes me by the arm a little way back up the hall, and keeps her voice low: ‘Greta, I'm certain, is perfectly good – she is in fine health. She explained everything to me.'

‘Did she?' I had counted on her saying nothing. Oh God. Mrs Weston must feel my juddering.

‘Yes. Particularly your high level of concern.' She smiles in that reassuring, forthright way of the midwife. ‘Berylda, your care for your sister is admirable, wonderful. I wish I had a sister just like you. But a late monthly flow is nothing out of the ordinary, really – or even one missed entirely. Hysterical irregularities are as common as they are mysterious.' She clicks her tongue. ‘Young women shouldn't have to go to medical school to learn these things. It should be taught at Sunday school, if you ask me, spoken about frankly and openly amongst the sisterhood, but I despair that it never will be.'

I am embarrassed, thank you, Greta, and all the same relieved once more: she has told Mrs Weston nothing of the truth; the most obvious culprit of absent menses having been thoroughly overlooked. There is no reason for Mrs Weston to suspect pregnancy: she knows Greta is a virtual prisoner in this house.

‘I'm sure you are right,' I reply, wary of my every word. ‘I should give Gret a hearty dose of Fluid of Magnesia and stop worrying, shouldn't I, but – Oh but I'm sorry to have caused such an alarm, put you out so. Please, stay with us for supper, won't you? Let me make it up to you? Having made you come all the way here.' Please, you must: you must stay here with Gret as her witness that she knows nothing of what I do.

‘You would never put me out.' Mrs Weston smiles more deeply. ‘I quite understand, Berylda. Your sister is so very dear to you.'

Inarguably. I will pay with my life for her, yes, if I must.

‘She's just tidying herself up now.' Mrs Weston squeezes my arm. ‘Let's share a meal for the pleasure of each other's company only, what do you say? Girls together. Oh, and the, er, inimitable Mr Thompson, who appears to have invited himself.' She laughs, and then she peers at me when I don't: ‘Are you quite all right yourself, Berylda? You seem a little pale, to me.'

‘Do I?' Even my voice is pale. ‘Tired. Long day.'

‘Miss Jones? Anyone there?' Ben is calling up from the back door, by the kitchen, I see him at the other end of the hall. My anchor. He clears his throat. Our eyes meet, and he nods that all is well, transport is arranged.

As Greta's face appears at the door to her room, not two yards away: ‘So
there
you are. Where did you go off to, Ryl?'

‘I told you – to let Uncle Alec know we were back.'

‘You didn't say that. You said –'

‘I
did
say that,' I tell her to shush with my eyes and glance at Mr Wilberry coming up the hall towards us as if he were the real reason for my absence – let Mrs Weston have seen that too, just to muddy these waters a little bit more. ‘And I can also say Uncle Alec probably won't be in by dinner, either – they were very busy at the hospital this –'

‘Oh, I know,' Mrs Weston adds. ‘Donald hasn't been home in time for dinner for I don't remember how long. I'm sure they have a private club upstairs there, don't you?'

‘Mrs Weston, ah, good evening.' Ben is here; right here. Taking Mrs Weston's hand.

As Cosmo Thompson bounds in from the rear parlour. ‘Wilber! You dashed dashing thing. Doesn't he make you want to eat your handbag, ladies? Handbags full of words. Edible, all of them. Is everybody hungry! I am so starving I could eat a shipload.'

‘So, am I allowed out of my room now, sister?' Gret raises her eyebrows at me, brushing past me: ‘Cosmo, did you find what you were looking for?'

I follow the sounds and the movements, by some automatic instinct. Greta pushing her shoulder playfully against Mr Thompson: ‘Let's be radical and have supper out in the rear parlour, shall we?' The edge of Mrs Weston's steady broadcloth hem brushing the skirting boards: ‘It really is lovely to see you again, Mr Wilberry. I feel we didn't have a chance to meet properly the other night. How did you find the excursion to the Hill?' A cry of delight when he tells her of his discovery of a flower by the river. I watch him return her smiles and queries tiredly, thoughtfully, tucking his too-long hair behind his ears. I wonder again if I might have waited, if there might have been another way, if I might have found the courage to confide the truth in Ben and had him go to the police for us; he would have been believed. And I discount the thought again as quickly: Alec Howell would never hang for his crimes, regardless of what son of a cattle king spoke against him. What man today is ever hanged for rape? What man can be hanged for a murder that can't be proved? None.

I eat creamed potato soup and crisp fried croutons, and I pray that there is justice; that he is dying now.

Is he?

In pain. He deserves to die in pain. He killed Libby. The shock comes for me again and again, with the terror of the truth beneath: I
knew
this all along. Somewhere inside my scrambling through the signs of the fever, looking for rose spots that weren't there on her lovely skin: I knew he killed her then. But I was only a child; I was only fifteen; I couldn't grasp how, or why anyone would do such a thing. He poisoned our Aunt Libby, possibly with some combination of organic chemical similar to that which I have given him; and he killed her for money: for our grandparents' estate, and then the unexpected windfall of Papa's. He killed her because she questioned his authority. Because she was a yellow tramp.

Oh my dear God.

And so I must witness his death, if God will not. Please. I look at my watch:
Hurry up, hurry up.
It's only ten past seven; eleven minutes past. I stare out into the hills disappearing into the sky outside. I watch the stars begin to prick through each of the three-inch squared mullioned panes.

‘What's wrong? Ryl – tell me,' Greta whispers beside me beneath some wide-flung loudness of Mr Thompson; she is still wondering what happened when I went to the hospital, she is asking again, concerned. She knows something has happened; something is happening. She knows I have lied to her somewhere this evening.

‘Oh I might be a bit annoyed you made a fool of me,' I whisper back, ‘pretending to Mrs Weston that there's nothing wrong with you.' I attempt to roll my eyes, but they barely move in my head. I am silently, calmly petrified.

‘There
is
nothing wrong with me.' Greta touches my knee under the table. ‘Not now. Truly. Believe me.'

Prince barks out the back on his chain, and a clattering of footsteps on the front verandah interrupts our meal, an urgent ringing of the bell. Mary is calling for Lucy, then thumping up the east hallway herself, muttering: ‘Suppose I have to do everything at once, since there's three of me.'