The Touch (33 page)

A reply that had the Bishop floundering, since it was given courteously yet firmly.

Grinning from ear to ear, Ruby blazed green fire at her son and mouthed, “That fucked him, Lee!”

Oh, dear God, thought Elizabeth, reading Ruby’s lips, let me get through this disaster unscathed! Having two Costevans and the Church of England at the same table is a recipe for disaster.

However, Chang was in fine form and produced a superb meal: a French country terrine finished with tinned truffles; fillets of John Dory grilled to perfection; the obligatory sorbet; roast beef from a beast fattened with a diet of corn; and ice cream splattered with passion fruit.

“Wonderful, wonderful!” cried the Bishop, tasting the dessert. “How do you keep it frozen, Mrs. Kinross?”

“We have a refrigeration works, your lordship. After Mr. Samuel Mort established his freezing plant in Lithgow, my husband saw the virtue of it. I used to long for a piece of fish, but there is none up here. Now we can bring it from Sydney without fearing that it will poison us.”

“But there are fish here,” said Lee, eating with gusto but careful of his manners. Difficult for a seventeen-year-old.

“No, there aren’t,” said Ruby.

“I assure you, Mum, there are. I found them today when I went bush. In a glorious pool way up the river.” He smiled at Elizabeth meltingly—why wouldn’t she thaw? “You must know of the pool, Mrs. Kinross. I followed a bridle path that I imagine only you could have made.”

I see that in company I am not Elizabeth. How clever of him. “Yes, I do know of the pool and its fish, Lee. Yet no matter how I longed for fish—acutely, in the old days—I couldn’t bear to catch them. They are so free. So untrammeled. So joyous. Were they leaping out of the water today?”

He flushed, looked contrite. “Er—no, I’m afraid not. I frightened them pretending I was a fish too.”

I have found a chink in her armor, he thought. A chink found by a Chink. Quite a good pun, Lee, if unintentional. She envies the fish, she doesn’t feel free, or untrammeled, or joyous. This house and her life are a prison she can’t escape. Poor Elizabeth! I wonder how old she is? It’s hard to tell a woman’s age once she’s dressed in all this clobber women have to wear. Mum is pushing forty, but Elizabeth is younger. About thirty-two or thirty-three, perhaps? “She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.” How did Byron know what the nights are like in Australia? She’s unforgettable, but that’s because of her remoteness. The likes of me don’t exist for her. I wonder does Alexander?

When the men arrived in the drawing room after their port and cigars, Lee found Elizabeth seated in a chair for one, and drew up another close to it. Ruby cast him a look of gratitude, at liberty to sit at the piano and earn her dinner.

“You know,” said Lee to Elizabeth in a low voice, “my mother is a truly great musician, and I’m sure that her skill has as much to do with her acceptance by the society of this town as her money does. I overheard some of the other guests as they left the car, all hoping ardently that she would play and sing.”

“I am aware of her talent,” said Elizabeth primly.

“I usurped your favorite spot today,” he said, “and I am sorry for it. I won’t go back, I promise. Your fish can leap in peace.”

“It is of no moment,” she said. “I cannot ride every day, just Wednesdays and Saturdays. On Sundays I go into Kinross to church, and on Thursdays I spend a few hours with your mother at the hotel. If you like, visit The Pool when I cannot—Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays. I have a feeling that you are not a churchgoer, so Sundays are possible too.”

“That’s kind of you, but I can go elsewhere.”

“Why? It might do the fish good to be stirred up.”

It would do you good to be stirred up, he thought. So calm, so polite, so indifferent. That pool means a lot to you, Elizabeth Kinross, but you can’t—or won’t—let me see it.

“I would like to meet your children,” he said.

“If you plan to eat lunch at the hotel tomorrow, you will. The children and I always have Sunday lunch with your mother.”

“YOU’RE VERY silent,” said Ruby to her son as they strolled the gardens of Kinross House waiting for the car to return. The huge clumsy dresses women wore took up more room than miners or men in evening dress, so they had let the car go down without them.

“I was thinking about Elizabeth.”

“Were you? What, exactly?”

“How old she is, for one thing. Alexander doesn’t talk of her, you know.”

“Elizabeth will be twenty-four in September.”

“You must be joking!” he said with a gasp. “But she’s been married for over seven years!”

“Yes. She was sixteen when Alexander married her. He brought her from Scotland sight unseen. If he doesn’t talk about her, it’s because the union never prospered. Why else does he still see me? And no doubt has a few feminine consolations in Europe.”

“You’re wrong there, Mum. He’s as celibate as a monk.” Lee grinned. “Which didn’t prevent his hiring the most magnificent bird of paradise to initiate me into the mysteries of sex.”

“Oh, that was kind of him,” she said sincerely. “I worried about that—the clap, the pox, unsuitable girls, gold-diggers. They must mill around a school like Proctor’s just waiting to snare inexperienced boys who have money to burn.”

“So Alexander thought. Be discriminating in the right sense, he said. Love will rule you, but sex never should.”

“He’s right. Have you a bird of paradise at the moment?”

“Oh, I still have the same one—I like dallying in a woman’s arms, but I’m not promiscuous. Just one at a time. I keep her in a nice flat far enough away from Proctor’s to be decent, and when I go up to Cambridge I’ll put her in a bigger flat there. I’ll be able to have my friends around,” said Lee, sounding pleased.

“She’s likely to cheat in your absence.”

“No, she won’t. She knows which side her bread is buttered on, Mum. Particularly as it comes sprinkled with diamonds.”

“And what else were you thinking about Elizabeth?”

“Oh, nothing much,” he said vaguely.

A lie he knew his mother would see through, yet somehow he didn’t want to share any more of his thoughts with her. A mere twenty-three years old! Straight from the schoolroom to the marital bed. That answered many of his questions, for he knew quite a number of sixteen-year-old girls. Some were the sisters and cousins of his schoolmates, but nationality didn’t matter—girls tended to be girls, and these girls were largely immune to the restraints that poverty and strict religious observance put on the humbler people of their realms. So they giggled a lot, were addicted to gossip, swooned when they saw young men they fancied, and dreamed of marriage romantically, despite the fact that it would be an arranged marriage. Unless the bridegroom was already known, they could always hope he would be the handsome young son of a nobleman rather than an ancient friend of their father’s, and chance was on their side. More married handsome sons than ancient advisers. Besides these girls, Lee knew the girls who attended Miss Rockleigh’s Academy for Young Ladies, situated in the neighborhood. Proctor’s had an arrangement with Miss Rockleigh’s, whereby the pupils of the two schools attended very proper dances together as well as a ball held every May Day. It was called grooming the pupils for their societal debut.

That kind of existence, he divined, had not been a part of Elizabeth’s life. More than instinct told him this: Alexander had once delivered a diatribe against Scottish Kinross, its Presbyterian minister and the clan of Drummond, to which Elizabeth belonged. If Alexander spoke the truth, the girls were kept in something akin to purdah. From that to marriage with a man years older than she; Alexander had turned thirty-nine last April. She wore her beauty like a garment she had donned the way a man did a uniform, to tell the world who Alexander thought she was.

Why does she dislike me? Because I’m a half-caste? No, I can’t credit that my mother would love her the way she does if Elizabeth were a bigot. Though it’s an odd alliance! She must know of the relationship between my mother and Alexander.

“Does Elizabeth know about you and Alexander?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. He tried to keep us apart, but he failed. We took one look at each other and were firm friends,” said Ruby.

Another question answered. Yet the mystery grew thicker and thicker, the convolutions more tortuous. What are they all going to say tomorrow at lunch when I explode my charge of dynamite? I can hardly wait.

The last thing Lee saw as he drifted into sleep was Elizabeth’s mouth, and the last thing he thought was what it would be like to kiss it.

“ODD THAT Nell wasn’t present before dinner last night,” said Ruby, greeting Lee with a hug. “How was Sung?”

Lee returned the hug, yanked at his stiff collar. “Must I stay in this getup for lunch, as it’s Sunday?”

“Yes, you must. Elizabeth goes to service at the C of E, so she’ll be in a good dress, hat on her head. You didn’t tell me how Sung was.”

“In excellent form, of course. Plutocracy suits Papa more than being a Pekinese prince did, I suspect. Very pleased with me! I rather think he rues the day that he disowned me.”

“Well, he wasn’t to know what the future held when you were a gorgeous fat baby,” said Ruby, smiling. “His loss, my gain.”

“I remember your saying that Nell would be there last night, Mum. Was it odd that she wasn’t?”

“Yes, decidedly so. Perhaps Nell’s in a Darwinian mood and would have refuted the C of E tenets about the Creation.”

“At six? Really, Mum!”

“Nell is a genuine prodigy, my son. Her interests are mostly scientific, but she also draws, paints, sculpts, and plays the piano and the harp extremely well. When her fingers can span an octave, I’ll have competition. I like her, but many people don’t.” Came a smile. “To shock is her besetting sin—does that sound familiar? Come to think of it, of course that’s why Elizabeth barred her last night. Nell would have gotten the Bishop’s measure inside one minute, then given a dissertation on the penis in its flaccid and erect states. She dotes on anatomy, and did not take long to realize that certain aspects of it are social dynamite if the audience is right.”

Lee burst out laughing. “She’s a minx! I’ll like her too.”

“I know Elizabeth has had a hard life,” Ruby said, “but I very much fear that Nell’s life will be harder.”

“And her a Kinross? Mum, Nell’s Australian nobility!”

“She may be a Kinross, but she’s a female, Lee. A female who is interested in subjects men regard as their exclusive prerogative. She’s such a blue-stocking! Alexander is delighted at it, naturally, but he can’t shelter her from ill treatment and opposition all her life.”

So when the church party came in, Lee looked at Nell with great curiosity, and saw Alexander. Cut her hair off and put her in short trousers, and there would stand a six-year-old Alexander. That provoked a rush of love in Lee, but Nell wasn’t about to love him back until he passed her examination.

First, however, he had to say hello to Elizabeth and Anna. A truly beautiful child, Elizabeth’s image save for the eyes.

“Meet Lee, Anna,” said Elizabeth, holding Anna in her arms. “Lee. Can you say Lee?”

“Dolly,” said Anna, waving it.

“May I have her?” Lee asked.

“She’ll cry, and I can’t allow that.” Curt, dismissive.

“No, she won’t,” he said calmly, plucking Anna from her mother’s grasp. “See? Hello, Anna-wanna.” He kissed her all over her face, which entranced her. Does no one kiss her like this? “I’m Lee, Anna-wanna. Can you say Lee? Lee, Lee, Lee.”

Anna turned to put her arms about his neck, and discovered the pigtail. “Snake!” she said, tugging it.

Elizabeth gaped. “Jade, I didn’t know she could say snake!”

“Neither did I, Miss Lizzy,” Jade said blankly.

“Not snake, pigtail. Oink, oink,” Lee grunted, not wincing at the healthy force exerted on his hair. “I’m Lee. Lee, Lee.”

“Lee,” said Anna, hugging him. “Lee, Lee.”

Exclamations of delighted amazement all around. Chagrin too.

How dare the interloper, Lee thought, giving Anna to Jade, who went off kitchenwards with her to spend the time with Sam Wong.

Lee, Ruby, Elizabeth and Nell sat down at the table in Ruby’s private dining parlor, Nell elevated on a cushion.

“What’s my daddy doing, Lee?”

“Inspecting the very efficient German telegraph system with Ernst and Friedrich Siemens.”

“Oh yes, Siemens and Halke,” said Nell, and frowned. “I think the one named Wilhelm is the most interesting Siemens.”

“I agree wholeheartedly, Nell. It’s just that Wilhelm has become William and lives in England—better patent laws than Germany.”

“It’s barely a united nation,” said Nell, “that’s why.”

“Give Count von Bismarck time, Nell.”

“His Christian name is Otto.”

“You’re conceited,” said Lee, voice normal.

“I am not conceited!”

“Yes, you are. Truly erudite people don’t overwhelm their less knowledgeable brethren with unnecessary facts. You know his Christian name is Otto, and I also happen to know his Christian name is Otto. But I’m not compelled to air my erudition for the sake of impressing my audience.”

She shut up like a sensitive plant at a touch, face scarlet, lids lowered, lips compressed to Alexander’s straight line. A silence fell while the two women debated what to say, what to do; in the end they ignored this monumental slap at Nell’s dignity, Ruby because she thought it would benefit Nell in times to come, Elizabeth because it thrilled her that someone had done what she couldn’t—put that awful child in her place. While Lee blithely ate his Chinese omelet as if nothing had happened.

Facing him across the little round table, Elizabeth couldn’t not look at him, dwelling upon the curious intimacy of watching him eat; the way his mouth moved, the play of muscles in his cheeks, the smoothness of a swallow. Economical yet thorough, immaculately done. He looked up and into her eyes so suddenly that she was sure he could read her thoughts in them; she didn’t blush, but for a moment he glimpsed an atrociously shy creature surprised at a spring. Then the shutters came down, she ate her omelet with what he knew was feigned enjoyment. What does go on behind your façade, Elizabeth? What were you thinking when you studied me just then? Tell me about your secret self!