Queen of Flowers (3 page)

‘Anyone like to tell me what this is about?’ asked Phryne pleasantly. ‘Jane?’

‘No,’ said Jane miserably.

‘Ruth?’

‘No!’ said Ruth.

‘Dot, do you know?’

‘No,’ said Dot, sounding both cross and surprised. ‘We were just having a nice quiet breakfast when they both went mental.’

‘Are you going to tell me what is happening?’ asked Phryne.

Both girls shook their heads. Phryne was very curious but it was going to be a busy day and she made her deployments in a manner which not only kept the combatants safely apart but gave the two of them jobs which they would find both hard and uncongenial.

‘Then you will go and apologise to poor Mr Butler. He does not like upsets. Neither do I, especially in the morning.

Jane will help Mrs Lin with the flowers. Ruth will sit in the small parlour and finish off the hems for all those aprons. I will be in here, talking to the Mayor’s secretary, if anyone would like to confide. Fair?’

The girls nodded glumly. Jane hated the idea of spending valuable thinking time designing something as foolish as flower arrangements. Ruth loathed plain sewing. They trailed off to make their apologies and Dot poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

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‘That was interesting,’ said Phryne, sitting down and nibbling at a piece of French toast, abandoned as it fell from a combatant’s nervous hand. Why had Jane called Ruth a fool?

And why had Ruth called Jane a liar?

‘I don’t know what’s come over them,’ said Dot. ‘I’m that sorry, Miss Phryne.’

‘Dot, dear, young women are not your fault,’ said Phryne.

‘Thank God. I would like to know what that was all about. It sounded serious. But meanwhile we have Miss Jones coming at ten and I’m sure that will give us enough to think about.

Poor woman! The problems of this Flower Festival appear to be proliferating like ants at a picnic.’

Dot regained her composure and finished her breakfast.

Mr Butler came in to clear away. Mrs Lin arrived with a folio of flower drawings. Miss Jones arrived and was shown in and supplied with tea. The day got under way.

Miss Jones was the sort of person who is concealed, like the nun in the foundation, in every organisation which does Good Works. Patient, dogged, meticulous, vastly overworked, unpaid and completely unappreciated, she finds, files, calls, arranges, soothes and ameliorates papers, contracts, tradesmen, repairs, hurt feelings and Very Important People. No one notices her until God finally calls her home or she quits to look after her aged parents, when the whole edifice instantly falls astonished to the ground. Repeated harassment usually greys her hair and causes her to lose her glasses, and pressure of work requires her to clothe herself in serviceable garments which are never decorated with anything more daring than a scarf and possibly a bluebird brooch. But Miss Jones’ strength was as the strength of ten because her heart was pure and Phryne liked her very much.

Therefore she always provided Miss Jones with a good solid
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pot of really strong tea, a plate of Mrs Butler’s excellent ginger biscuits, and ten minutes in which to gather her thoughts.

Miss Jones appreciated Phryne, too. Even though she was reputed to be Fast. Miss Fisher had handed over a thumping cheque to the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and with that money Miss Jones could do an awful lot of good in the way of layettes for poor women, refuges for unwed mothers and meals for hungry children. Miss Fisher deserved to be Queen of the Flowers in the parade that was the grand finale of the Flower Festival, and Miss Jones just knew she was going to look absolutely beautiful. And she had not only paid for her own dress but those of the four flower maidens, too. Also, her tea was just as Miss Jones liked it and the biscuits were her favourite. She prized small courtesies, because they were the only ones she ever received.

She put down her cup and sighed. Miss Fisher took the sheaf of papers which Miss Jones offered.

‘The bazaar will be opened by the Lady Mayoress at one on Friday,’ said Miss Jones. ‘The church ladies will be offering tea and cakes. I’ve sorted out the big wheel and the lucky envelopes, there will be a bran-tub lucky dip, games for the children and of course, the sale of work.’

Miss Jones closed her eyes and intoned with great pleasure,

‘We have pokerwork and barbola work and lampshades and tassels and ribbon work and lace. We have knitting and tatting and crochet and beading, we have the daintiest dressed dolls, very pretty, we have jewellery and pottery and leaded glass, we have dried flower pictures and chocolate paper pictures and—’

‘Stop, stop, Miss Jones dear, you overwhelm me,’ exclaimed Phryne, charmed by Miss Jones’ enthusiasm.

‘And watercolours, of course,’ added Miss Jones. ‘But not, perhaps, for your walls, Miss Fisher.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Phryne. ‘You never know.’

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Miss Jones knew that Miss Fisher’s invariable method of tackling bazaars was to inveigle all the gentlemen of her acquaintance into the venue and then require them to buy as many armloads of the more despised produce—wobbly coffee cups, off-centre beading, tangled tatting—as they could carry in payment for her smile. They seemed to think it was worth it. Miss Jones thought that it must be nice to have a smile that valuable.

‘So if you will arrange for the flowers to be delivered early, the church ladies will do the Town Hall,’ said Miss Jones.

‘Already done,’ said Phryne, handing over the waybill from Misses’ Ireland, Eastern Market. ‘Ireland’s are also delivering the flowers for the nosegays to me on the Saturday morning. We will dress here and go down to the float in the car. Strike the flowers from your list of things to worry about, Miss Jones.’

Miss Jones, with considerable relief, did so.

‘And here is the program for the whole week. I think you will agree that we have something for everybody.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Phryne, scanning rapidly. Yes, from Monday to Saturday there was something going on somewhere: a carnival and a circus, Luna Park (just for fun), lifesaving and swimming demonstrations, marching bands, gymnastic displays, recitations, community singing. Lantern lectures! The Holy Land, she was prepared to bet. Or Along the Nile. Both were present, and a lecture from someone called Professor Mercken reading ‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’, with illustrative slides. ‘Our camels sniff the evening and are glad.’

Yes, that might be worth seeing.

Miss Jones was getting up, smoothing her grey serge skirt and finding her glasses. Phryne saw her out cordially. Mr Butler brought in the post. There was nothing unusual except for a playing card. It was the ace of clubs. Phryne turned it over and
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saw, written in very black ink at the bottom of the card, W 11:15, K 3:00.

Cryptic. Probably someone calculating their losses. She set it aside for later consideration. No sound from the parlour, where Ruth was angrily hemming. No sound from the salon, where Jane was listening to Camellia talk about flower designs.

Molly was truffling in the garden bed just outside the window.

Phryne closed her eyes, just for a moment, listening to the silence of a well-conducted household. When she awoke Mr Butler was at the door, intimating that the car was ready to take her to lunch.

Walking into Café Anatole always made Phryne feel alive.

It was a perfect Parisian bistro—lots of zinc, bosomy girl, gold-lettered glass and white paper tablecloths—set down in St Kilda, run by Monsieur Anatole Bertrand
et sa famille
.

Phryne was very fond of all of them and surrendered her light coat to Jean-Paul, today’s Cheeky French Waiter Extraordi-naire, with relief. The air was scented with herbs and onion and she was suddenly ravenous.

Four flower maidens stood up as Phryne was shown to their table. Anatole’s had become a Suitable Place for unattached young women from the best of circles to lunch unaccompanied by a chaperone. Anatole, a bon bourgeois with a strong sense of what was, and what was not,
convenable
, ran accounts for their parents and the Young Ladies were indulged with beautiful food and slightly Bohemian company. Anatole would never let anything
inconvenable
happen to them, and real trouble would be averted by the strong arm of Cousin Henri. But ‘going to Anatole’s’ was slightly daring all the same. And both Jean-Paul and his brother Jean-Jacques were such outrageous flirts. Only Phryne knew that it was part of their training. One did not become a Cheeky French Waiter with a delicate line in flattery—

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enough to amuse, never slipping over into offence—without careful instruction.

Phryne sat and greeted the young ladies. They had raised the most money for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal from their charitable efforts and their acquaintances. They were not distinguished in looks, except for being young and healthy, and had tried Madame’s ingenuity in finding a style of costume which would complement everyone from Joannie Smythe’s rosy plumpness and blonde curls to Diane Pridham’s dark solidity, Marie Bernhoff ’s adolescent gawkiness and Rose Weston’s premature bust. Madame had, at one point, almost accepted Phryne’s suggestion of pink smocks and sun bonnets, a measure of the difficulty of her task. Miss Fisher’s next suggestion—matching sugar sacks—had at least made Madame Fleuri laugh, which didn’t happen very often.

‘
Salut
,’ said Phryne. ‘Do sit down, ladies. I think we might venture on one glass of champagne, and I’m sure that Anatole has something charming for lunch.’

‘Madame Bertrand is cooking today,’ said Jean-Paul, mat-erialising with glasses and a wrapped bottle. ‘There are
hors
d’oeuvres froids
, a little soup, a fine
poulet roti à la diva
with
haricots flageolets
and
pommes de terre fondantes
, and such beautiful ladies will of course enjoy Madame’s famous
glace
Alhambra
for dessert.’

He coaxed the cork from the bottle—no French waiter, however cheeky, will retain his position if he wastes good champagne in popping, a practice fit only for Englishmen and barbarians—and allowed a little golden wine to trickle into Phryne’s glass. She inhaled. Perfect. Sprightly and a little sweet, a gentle introduction to wine being part of a young lady’s education.

They sipped obediently. Diane made a face and put down
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the glass. She knew what she liked and so far she didn’t like wine. Child of a wealthy biscuit manufacturer and stolid from the nursery, Phryne considered. Joannie gulped and choked lightly. Possibly because she knew that Jean-Paul would thus have to pat her on the back. Good-natured and fond of her own way—the same might be said of me, Phryne thought, except for the bit about ‘good-natured’—and possibly more intelligent than her cream-fed looks might indicate to the casual observer.

Thin gawky Marie took another small taste, swallowed, and tried again. That one might easily prove to have taste, thought Phryne. Not the first champagne in her life, I’ll warrant. Her father was a famous orchestral musician and Marie had raised her money by putting on select
thé-dansants
for the flirting pairs amongst her class. She herself had played the viola in the chamber ensemble.

Rose raised her glass and drank fully half of it without taking a breath. Rather too practised for thirteen. Phryne didn’t know Rose’s family, the Westons. Reputed to be old and reputed, also, to be miserly. They were ruled over by an antique grandfather who had not the slightest idea of the cost of the modern world or the least intimation about when to die. He had made Rose Weston’s father adopt the family surname. Rose always rather worried Phryne. The girl was far too wound up to be comfortable company. Her eyes were too bright, her speech too fast, and she never sat still. Even now, halfway through a glass of good champagne, her thin fingers were tapping on the table.

Jean-Paul raised an eyebrow, strictly for the edification of Madame Fisher, and retreated to bring out a series of cold hors d’oeuvres. The girls commented on their champagne.

‘I don’t like this stuff,’ said Diane. ‘Can I have some orangeade?’

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‘I am getting used to it,’ said Marie. ‘I like the sort of lemony taste.’

‘I love the way the bubbles tickle,’ giggled Joannie.

‘I’ll have yours, if you don’t want it,’ said Rose.

Phryne allowed them free range amongst the little savouries which Anatole’s made so well. Anchovies with red peppers.

Little barquettes with various fillings—egg, salmon mousse, chicken, foie gras and ham. Phryne selected the plate of vegetable hearts with Madame’s mayonnaise, always an alchemi-cal marvel.

‘These are really little eggs,’ said Diane, eating three. ‘Must come from really titchy hens.’

‘Plovers,’ explained Phryne. ‘You might like a barquette, this one’s egg.’

‘And these are really salty grapes!’ objected Marie.

‘Olives,’ explained Phryne. ‘Another acquired taste. Just spit it into your napkin.’

‘This is nice of you, Miss Fisher,’ said Joannie, embarrassed by her gauche friends. ‘To take us out to lunch like this at Anatole’s. I mean, you didn’t have to do it. You just have to tell us where to sit and what to do and we’ll obey. It’s a tremen-dous honour to meet you, my mother says.’

‘I like to know who I’m sharing a float with,’ said Phryne, awarding Joannie a mark for savoir-faire. ‘And it should be fun.