Rosetta (4 page)

MELBOURNE, 7 NOVEMBER 1899

Rosetta has no idea it will be at the Melbourne Cup, the colony's premier racing event and prime occasion for ostentatious display, that she will meet a woman whose destiny will be intimately interwoven with her own. Nor does she know that one day she will, like this same woman, be on the closest terms with some of the most celebrated inhabitants of Europe and Great Britain.

On the morning of the Cup, a day of clear skies and brilliant sunshine, Rosetta's chief preoccupation is the challenge of accommodating her stays. Though she is still only nineteen and it has taken some time for her pregnancy – the result of her disastrous wedding night – to show, still she struggles with the lacing and the many hooks and eyes.

There has been at least one redeeming feature of being with child. ‘Louis, you really cannot expect me to share a bed with you in my condition,' she said sharply when her fears were confirmed. ‘It would be unwise.' Her husband, now conscious of Rosetta's quick
temper, has retired to another room. Though he desires her still, he is prepared to wait. That he seeks comfort in the arms of other, more acquiescent women, is inevitable. As Louis says, though only to himself, ‘What is a man, with a man's needs, to do?'

While Rosetta wrestles with her undergarments she, too, contemplates the consequences that birth will bring, though she is less sanguine. More than the fact that she will be tied to Louis forever, it seems to her that becoming a mother spells the end of … possibilities. The possibilities for what, exactly, she isn't sure, but something beyond the safe, circumspect world of provincial Melbourne. She wants more than that.

Rosetta's fashionable wasp-waisted dress has been a considered choice, for she knows that the Cup is likely to be the last occasion on which she can go easily about in public dressed in such an unforgiving style. Its colour is known as
eau-de-Nil
; she whispers the words to herself, enjoys the fluid, foreign way they sound and the exotic images they bring to mind. The cool mint colour flatters Rosetta's pale complexion, enhances her dark russet hair. On her head she places a fantastical wide-brimmed hat trimmed with black net, white silk flowers and swooping feathers dyed forest green. When Louis sees her he exclaims, ‘Rosetta, you look most attractive.' She permits him a brief smile.

By the time Rosetta reaches Flemington racecourse she feels unwell. It is too hot, her dress too tight, her pretty hat now weighs heavily upon her head. She does not speak of her discomfort, however, for she is determined to enjoy this last chance for amusement. Rosetta observes the ladies of society as they greet friends and move about the banks of golden roses and fern-filled urns. She notes with a tiny stab of envy that several women wear the unmistakable ensembles from the Paris-based house of Worth: their fabrics are more sumptuous, the trimmings more lavish than any others, and their cut is conspicuously refined.

Unhappily, the tranquil conditions, so beneficial for seeing and being seen, change suddenly. Indeed, even
The Australasian
's
seasoned reporter is observed to scribble in his moist notebook that ‘never on Cup Day' has it rained as it does from noon.

While the heavens open and monsoonal torrents of water pour from murderous skies, frantic racegoers, valuing the preservation of finery rather more highly than the safeguarding of dignity, rush and scramble for whatever shelter they can find. The sodden lawn, so recently the venue for much pleasant preening, is now unapproachable and the enclosure has become an oozing black quagmire.

Fortunately for Louis and Rosetta, the members' stand is nearby. By two o'clock the rain has stopped. As a fierce sun begins to emerge from behind the clouds they are beckoned over by a well-turned-out man wearing a sleek top hat.

‘Ah, Mr Raphael,' he says, ‘just the man I need. I've trained my colt Merriwee hard, but do you think he has a chance on such a slow track?'

‘Mr Powell,' Louis replies, shaking his hand. ‘I think he has. He's young but has a certain gait I like. I've placed a good wager on him, anyway.'

‘Well then, why don't you and Mrs Raphael join me here?' Powell asks. ‘Your wife may bring me luck.'

The air within the overcrowded stand is close. Rosetta feels giddy and a slick of sweat forms on her brow. As the race draws nearer, the temperature rises and racegoers crowd ever closer. She fears she will be crushed. Rosetta hears a sudden noise and, as the barrier jerks up, she turns her head sharply towards the track.

The horses spring away, their jockeys already riding high and straining forward. Now all is streaming colour, flashing silk, flying whips and noise. There is a deep rumble as hooves strike the churning ground, a thudding felt in limbs and bellies and a ringing in the ears as a hundred thousand voices cry out ‘Faster!' and urge their favourites on. Louis is absorbed, his knuckles clench and tighten. Rosetta sees a piece of earth and grass fly through the air and, after that, nothing more.

 

‘This was a mistake,' Louis says gravely as he bends over his wife. Rosetta has fainted. She doesn't know that Merriwee has won. Her head is being cradled by a woman she has never seen before, a woman whose hair reminds Rosetta of wind-rippled wheat fields and whose clear blue eyes seem like pieces of the sky.

‘I am Mrs Pakenham,' the woman says, her heart-shaped face creased with concern. ‘My husband and I were with His Excellency Lord Brassey in the Vice-Regal party, just across the aisle. I saw you faint.'

The two women regard each other. Something passes between them, a kind of recognition though they have never met before. In that brief moment an understanding is established and Rosetta knows that Louis is quite wrong. Coming to the Cup has not been a mistake at all.

 

I discover the detailed web of connections that wind themselves about Lilian Blanche Georgina Pakenham buried in the dense type of some photocopied pages from that definitive guide to the British aristocracy,
Debrett's Illustrated Peerage
. There is obviously some skill in reading
Debrett's
, and it is one in which I am not practised – untangling who, exactly, was related to whom is a challenge. One fact, however, quickly becomes clear: the daughter of Privy Counsellor the Right Honourable (Anthony) Evelyn Ashley and granddaughter of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lilian was born in Ireland in 1875 into a world of undeniable privilege.

As I note the plethora of elaborate titles, it occurs to me that in this elevated realm marriage was not so much a matter of romance as of advantage. Occasionally, there was an irregular liaison such as in the case of Lilian's brother, the future Wilfred Lord Mount Temple, who
Debrett's
informs me was destined to wed a young woman by the name of Maud Cassel. Although Maud was the daughter of a German-born Jewish financier, Sir Ernest
Cassel, these drawbacks were clearly overlooked; Sir Ernest was, after all, an intimate friend of Edward, Prince of Wales, and fabulously rich.

After Maud sadly succumbed to consumption at the age of thirty-two, Sir Ernest declared that her daughter – Lilian's niece, Edwina – would be, upon his death, the principal beneficiary of his enormous fortune. It meant that, following her grandfather's demise, the twenty-year-old girl inherited not only millions of pounds, but Brook House, his palatial Mayfair mansion. Overnight, Edwina Ashley had become, in the words of
The World's News
, ‘the greatest heiress in the kingdom'.

Apart from fantastic wealth and a distinctly racy, well-publicised reputation, what was to distinguish the blue-eyed Edwina was her marriage to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma and cousin of the King. Their union is, of course, also documented in
Debrett's
, though not its unusual nature. Lord Mountbatten admitted to his friends that he and his wife ‘spent all our married lives getting into other people's beds'.

One day Edwina Mountbatten would concern herself with my great-grandmother's own unorthodox liaisons.

By contrast, Lilian's marriage promised, at least at first, to be conventional. At the age of twenty she wed Hercules Arthur Pakenham, an eligible young captain in the 2nd Grenadier Guards. A charming account of the marriage, which took place at the Guards' Chapel, Wellington Barracks, appeared on 20 November 1895 in the columns of the
Hampshire Advertiser
.

The report made the point that the bride was attended by nine bridesmaids attired in pink ‘flesh-tinted' dresses and black velvet hats with black plumes; I note that their names (there were two Violets, an Evelyn and a Sybil among them) were uniformly preceded by a rarefied prefix – each one of the nine was a Lady or Hon.

The newspaper next painted a glorious picture: against a backdrop of palms, banks of chrysanthemums and white arum
lilies, the satin- and chiffon-clad bride made her way, on the arm of her father, down an aisle lined with crisply saluting red-coated Guardsmen.

Was it possible, as the bevy of bridesmaids passed by, that one soldier winked and an Hon, in response, could have fluttered her lashes? And did Lilian, when she heard the choir break into a rendition of ‘Lead Us Heavenly Father Lead Us' accompanied by ‘a string quartette, a piano and a harmonium', have a moment's concern as to what life might be like as the next Mrs Pakenham?

Hercules, or Arthur as he was usually addressed, was a man of distinguished family. Not only had his grandfather, General Ned Pakenham, fought alongside the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, Ned's sister, Kitty, had married the revered hero. With both Miss Ashley and Captain Pakenham in possession of such illustrious relations, it was generally thought by all concerned that their marriage was not merely suitable but destined for success.

Arthur, though a soldier, was attracted to a political career. As a minor member of the aristocracy (albeit with an impeccable pedigree), a position of service in a distant colony was deemed by his father's well-placed friends to be the most efficacious way in which to further these ambitions. A brandy taken at the right club, a word in the appropriate ear, and Arthur was duly appointed private secretary to the Governor of Victoria, Lord Brassey.

Lilian was not consulted about whether she wished to come to this remote land. Her husband simply announced one day, shortly before a regimental dinner (from which, due to her sex, she was naturally excluded), that this was the course of action on which he had decided. So it was that in 1899, and with the Pakenham motto,
Glory is the Shadow of Virtue
, firmly fixed in her husband's mind, Lilian found herself in Melbourne.

The Pakenhams inhabit vast Government House. So grand  is it in size that it exceeds any other of the Empire's Vice-Regal mansions. The Governor's splendid ballroom, much to the sovereign's chagrin, is larger even than her own at Buckingham Palace. Rumour has it that Her Majesty tried to stop it being built, so envious was she of its emphatic scale, but word came back too late; construction had begun.

Lilian is kept busy in this magnificent edifice by a round of receptions and official engagements. She helps her husband to entertain Melbourne's
nouveau riche
, visiting dignitaries and their wives. She greets and meets and talks and smiles. She feels constrained.

Just a few miles to the east, across the Yarra River, Rosetta's life is quiet. As her pregnancy advances, she ceases to go about in society. Sometimes she visits her mother or younger sisters, perhaps strolls in the park with them. Most days she stays in her new home, a white-painted cottage in Waltham Street, Richmond. Rosetta walks about her small lavender-filled garden or rests on
a silk-draped day bed beneath a lemon tree. It is a lonely, sequestered way of being.

A note from her new acquaintance enquiring if she may call upon Mrs Raphael for tea provides the promise of a welcome diversion. Rosetta, delighted, responds with alacrity.

When the two women meet they exchange the usual pleasantries. One praises her guest's primrose dress, the other her hostess's charming house. But beneath this polite social intercourse both feel the same connection they did previously.

Rosetta does not want anything to cast a shadow over this incipient friendship. ‘Mrs Pakenham,' she begins.

‘Please, I would like you to call me Lilian. And, if I may, I will address you as Rosetta.'

‘Lilian.' A little more at ease now, Rosetta starts again. ‘As you know, our society is young and those who came here first were not always of fortunate circumstance.' She looks down, examines the oriental pattern of her cup. ‘I myself am the granddaughter of a former convict. I feel it best you know that.'

Lilian is composed. She says that she has met others – even in Government House – possessed of a similar background. She adds that, in any case, she does not care. Then, with a wry smile, she remarks, ‘Still, my grandfather the Earl and, who knows, perhaps yours too, might have had something to say about it.'

Despite the marked differences in lineage, both women enjoy a rare harmony. After this first visit Lilian comes often, and as their friendship deepens it occurs to Rosetta that her companion seems as distanced from her own husband as she herself is from Louis. One day, while strolling with Rosetta in her garden, Lilian breaks off a stem of lavender, inhales its scent and then confesses, ‘My husband and I …' She hesitates before adding, ‘There is an arrangement …'

Her friend moves in circles more exalted than Rosetta's own. They make their own rules, have their own discreet ways of
observing society's conventions while, in private, they conduct their lives precisely as they choose.

Rosetta, at first a little taken aback by Lilian's revelations, finds herself intrigued. She begins to see that relations between men and women are not fixed within the immutability of marriage but allow for unexpected variations.

The people Lilian knows are the kind whom the Melbourne newspaper
The Argus
reports on in a regular column headed ‘Personal', which chronicles the lives of the socially well connected. Reports are constructed within a pyramid of status, always commencing with Vice-Regal activities before moving on to matters concerning lesser men and women. It is in one of these columns that Rosetta discovers that Captain Pakenham ‘had the misfortune to break his collar-bone when playing tennis at Mr. R. Power's residence, Toorak'.

‘Yes, of course,' Rosetta thinks. This must be the reason that is given for Mrs Pakenham's frequent appearance at official engagements in the company of the Governor's handsome
aide-de-camp
, Lord Richard Plantagenet Neville.
The Argus
says she also hunts with him.

Rosetta, alone and heavy with child, lies upon her day bed and dreams that it is she who hunts with Lilian riding at her side.

 

On the morning of 22 February 1900, the first pains strike. They are as sharp and as hard as punishment, and for what? Rosetta, furious and wild, slams her hand down, hard, upon the mantelpiece and cries, ‘Why should I suffer in this way when it is Louis, Louis who is to blame?'

Her distress rapidly heightening, she calls out to the tow-haired girl who helps her in the house. ‘Dear God, Ivy! Go straight away – fetch my mother and the midwife.'

Now the pain is far worse. It wracks her and torments her; there is nothing else. When Fanny arrives she finds her daughter
walking back and forward across the parlour. Every few minutes Rosetta stops, clings to a marble-topped table, gasps and writhes. Mrs Wainwright, the midwife, comes in moments later, takes in the scene and insists that Mrs Raphael retire to her bed. ‘It is happening very quickly,' she says to Fanny. ‘You wouldn't think it was her first.' Rosetta is feverish. She feels she is surely being consumed by fire. As the fierce urge to bear down consumes her she thinks only, ‘Let me survive.'

At last a little girl, red and bewildered, is born. Her translucent eyes open briefly to meet those of her mother, then close as she makes a soft, mewing sound. Rosetta turns her head away. Fanny, anxious, is with child herself and birth is only weeks away. There is little she can do to help her daughter now.

‘Rosie, what will you call her?' she asks.

‘Frances. After you.'

 

The baby's second name, Catherine, is decided upon later. Louis insists; it is his mother's name. It is all the same to Rosetta. Ever since the birth a listlessness has come upon her. The future looks grey and formless, and though she knows she has what most women crave – a home, a husband with property and a good income, a child – it doesn't seem enough. In the long hours of the night, when the baby cries to be suckled, Rosetta feels as if a thick sack has been pulled over her head, a sack that invisible hands are tightening so she can neither see nor breathe nor think. She merely feels the suffocation as the thought ‘This is forever' whirrs about her mind and is repeated, again and again.

‘It's strange,' Ivy says to her mother one night after she has returned home to their tiny Collingwood terrace, ‘but Mrs Raphael doesn't seem quite right with Frances.' The girl looks up from the stockings she is mending. ‘She isn't sharp with her, I don't mean that.'

‘Well, she rounds on you quickly enough,' Ivy's mother says.

‘That's what makes it so hard to understand,' Ivy replies. ‘I like Mrs Raphael, even though she's the type to give you a piece of her mind.' She shakes her head. ‘But I don't know, with Frances, well, she just doesn't seem herself.'

The baby wants Rosetta, always. She reminds her of Louis; his insistent demands upon her flesh are now shared by his infant daughter. Rosetta suffers. She finds she cannot love the child.

 

Another blow is struck.
The Argus
announces that the following month the Governor, Lord Brassey, will return to England. There is no choice; Lilian and her husband must depart with them. One final meeting between the two friends takes place in Rosetta's garden. ‘Dearest, I will miss you so,' Lilian says. ‘Look, I have brought you these.' At that time there exists a singular language, consisting not of words but blooms; careful nuances lie behind each variety and type. The golden pansies that she holds have a special meaning: ‘Think of me as I will think of you'. In the sunlit garden the two women, one fair, one dark, shed tears as they embrace.

Lilian leaves Melbourne just a few days afterwards. The door that has been briefly opened has shut abruptly on Rosetta's dreams and hopes.

Months later a parcel arrives for her. Ivy calls out, ‘Mrs Raphael, come and look! You'll never guess – something's been sent from London.'

The box is on the hall table next to a vase of lavender, not large but sturdy, tied securely with string and bearing several stamps. The address is written in a sloping hand which, with a rare wave of excitement, Rosetta recognises. Eagerly, she begins to untie knots, to tear at the wrapping so that shreds of paper fly through the air like parchment wings.

Inside the box, carefully enclosed in a soft, lemon-coloured cloth, she finds a gift. Rosetta takes it out. She runs her fingers over
its length, first the slender, plaited leather shaft, then the carved bone of its ridged handle. Next she sees the initials
L.P.
, the words
From R.P.N.
and
Melbourne, June 1899
engraved on two circles of polished brass. And then she smiles. It is Lilian's riding crop, the whip that she took with her when she hunted.

 

Now that gift belongs to me. I see it on my desk and, just like Rosetta, I too touch the bone, the leather and the brass. I pick it up and hold it in my hand, this conjurer's talisman.