Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (35 page)

‘They start at a different place every day,’ said Isobel. ‘So no one is permanantly disadvantaged when the food runs out. We work hard: everyone is hungry. Have some bread. Homemade. Home-churned butter. Rabbit stew to follow. And Ernesta is in the kitchen today. It will be good.’

It was. Phryne would have said it was coniglio alla cacciatore, heavy with garlic, tomatoes and herbs. With it were tender new potatoes and a melange of green vegetables: beans, peas in their pods, spinach. The vegetarians had the cacciatore without the coniglio. Phryne ate enthusiastically, even though she had sworn she would never eat rabbit again. This was excellent food for an institution. She noticed that the children were actually eating their greens. Most of them ate them first. She asked Isobel about it.

‘If they eat their greens they get cooked dessert,’ said Isobel. ‘If not, only raw fruit. It seems to work for all but the most adamant, and those have just drunk vegetable soup. We are not bound by the outmoded conventions of child-raising that saw them fed on nothing but starch,’ she added, proudly.

‘They do you credit,’ said Phryne.

They were bright-eyed, rosy and noisy. One child had smuggled a kitten into the room and was feeding it cooled bits of rabbit. No one banished her.

‘Where do they go to school?’

‘At Bacchus Marsh. There are enough of them so that they are not much bullied. Some of them are very bright.’

Plates were cleared away. There were few leftovers. Then large platters of raw fruit were brought in, accompanied by apples baked with honey and sultanas, and fruit crumble and pitchers of cream, for those who had eaten their greens. There was sweet cider for the children and alcoholic cider for the commune. It was reminiscent of Cornish cider: cloudy and potent.

‘We use the apple pulp to feed animals,’ Isobel informed her. ‘Pigs, goats and donkeys love it.’

‘Very good,’ said Phryne. ‘The old lord’s steward trained you well. No waste. And you have adapted beautifully to local conditions. What happens to the ones who will not work and want to lie about all day, discussing important political questions and painting mediocre pictures?’

‘Oh, you mean men?’ asked the woman next to Isobel. ‘We don’t have any of them.’

There was a general laugh. ‘All right, yes, we have had people like that,’ said Isobel. ‘But they get bored easily. We don’t have any amusements like cafes and pubs and galleries, their natural habitat. You can’t wear pretty clothes here, not with gumboots. No point in putting on makeup to attract the cows. And we get up far too early. We just set the whiners to heavy work, like mucking out stables and weeding. If they do it, fine. If not, then they’re out. We get Russ to take them back to the train. Just because we’re socialists doesn’t mean we’re a soft touch.’

‘So I see.’ Phryne stood up and banged on the table with a spoon. Conversation about Lenin died away. ‘Hello, Comrades. Bert and Cec send their fraternal greetings. I’m Phryne Fisher and I’m missing a reporter. Can anyone help me? Has anyone seen anything of Polly Kettle?’

General denial and a buzz of speculation.

‘And does anyone know anything about Jobs for All in Lonsdale Street?’

‘You stay away from them,’ said a stout, ruddy, good-looking woman in an apron. ‘They’re collecting blondes, they say. Girls.’

‘Do you know anything more, Mrs… ?’

‘Comrade Levin,’ said the woman. ‘I got a letter from my sister. She just says that someone from Jobs for All was telling little blonde schoolgirls they could get them a theatre job overseas. My sister’s daughter was approached. Luckily my niece told her mum and her mum sorted them out, smartish. Got rid of the bloke with a clip around the ear and told all the neighbours about him. He didn’t come back!’

‘Any name? Description?’ asked Phryne.

‘I got the letter here…’ She groped in the apron’s capacious pocket. ‘Yes, here it is. She says he was a good-looking, flashy bloke with patent-leather hair and a gold tooth. A rat, she reckons.’

‘He sounds like one! Did he give a name?’

‘Bill Smith,’ said Comrade Levin, with a world of scorn in her voice. ‘Somethin’ ought to be done about rats like him.’

‘And I shall give the matter my earliest attention,’ Phryne assured her. ‘If not Polly, has anyone seen a reporter? Someone interested in your endeavour?’

‘Only that Rachel from The Woman Worker a few months back. We gave her tea. Nice girl. But we know her. She’s been here before.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Phryne. ‘She’s either been shipped to Beirut or is locked up in the Convent of the Good Shepherd. Poor Polly!’

‘There’s not a lot of ways out of that convent if they don’t want to let you go,’ said one of the comrades, feeding mashed vegetables to a toddler. ‘Only one, apart from being dead.’

‘And that is?’

‘I’ll whisper,’ said the young woman.

Phryne stooped. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Now, I really must go if I’m to catch the 8.10. Can I order a case of your white peaches, Comrade Isobel, when they are ready? Here’s the money and my card for delivery and also—Lord, I almost forgot—do you have any apple jelly to sell?’

Chapter Fifteen

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6, King James Bible

Having arrived home, given her large jars of premium apple jelly to Mrs. Butler—half for herself and half for Dr. MacMillan—shed her disguise and taken a bath, Phryne dressed in a silky robe and sat down at her window. Where are you, Polly? she thought into the soft darkness of the St. Kilda night.

The darkness, as was usual, yielded no answer. Just drunks singing, the splashing of the sea, the almost unheard whicker and gossip of homing fruit bats overhead. I do like Australia, thought Phryne, and put herself to bed. Tomorrow would produce some answers, or her name was not Phryne Fisher.

***

Tomorrow, however, produced a predawn downpour in which Ember had been caught. While Jane and Ruth were in the kitchen drying him, much to his displeasure, and Mrs. Butler was contemplating the ruby light of early morning through her new jars of apple jelly—which she would be enjoying on English muffins any moment—someone lifted the latch on the back gate and slunk into the garden.

The intruder was promptly bailed up by Tinker, who had been out fishing, barked at by a damp dog, marched dripping wet into the kitchen, and plunked miserably into a chair next to a spitting angry wet cat, who was shredding an old towel.

It was not a conspicuously joyous advent. However, since the intruder clearly posed no threat and was really wet, cold and weeping, Mrs. Butler provided dry garments and a towel and laid on a good breakfast, though she did not feel that she had to offer trespassers any of her apple jelly.

‘Did you leave the back gate unlocked?’ demanded Mrs. Butler.

Tinker hung his head. ‘I didn’t think I’d be long; they were really biting,’ he muttered, holding up a string of cleaned fish for evidence.

‘Good boy for the fish, bad boy for the gate. Always lock it. We could all be murdered in our beds!’ exclaimed Mrs. Butler. ‘You never know who might sneak inside!’

‘I meant no harm,’ began the shiverer in a whisper.

‘That’s as may be. Now drink your tea,’ ordered the cook. ‘Toast, eggs, bacon, fish, porridge?’

‘Not porridge…’ whispered the invader.

‘All right, then. Tinker, put those fish in the sink. Get the girls to set the table. Bustle along,’ she said, and they bustled.

Breakfast was just getting into its swing when Phryne made her usual entrance, in silk gown and with her second cup of coffee in her hand. Only the iron self-control of years ensured that she did not drop it when she saw who sat at her table, wearing Mrs. Butler’s dressing gown and nibbling toast with (shop-bought) strawberry jam.

‘Good morning, Agnes,’ said Phryne, sitting down and ordering more coffee.

‘Guv?’ asked Tinker, confessing before anyone could tell on him. ‘I left the gate open when I went out fishing. I’m sorry, Guv.’

‘And that’s who walked in?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘No matter. Lock it in future. Agnes will cause us no harm, but someone else might.’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Good fish, though,’ said Jane. ‘Ember’s forgiven us for drying him.’

‘That cat would forgive a lot for fish,’ said Ruth.

‘Especially fresh fish,’ agreed Tinker. ‘He meets me at the gate when I come in each morning, and the look he gives me if there ain’t, isn’t, no, any fish. Like my old schoolmaster.’

‘Cross cats are good,’ said Ruth dotingly, embracing the purring black creature.

‘I like cats,’ said Agnes timidly. She was a plump, pop-eyed woman of indeterminate colouring, aged perhaps forty. ‘They have cats at the convent. For the mice. But not black ones. They won’t have black ones. Black cats come from the devil.’

‘Yes, I expect so, but that’s cats for you,’ said Phryne soothingly, suppressing her minions. Any moment now Agnes would tell Ruth that they always drowned the black kittens, and she would be upset. Phryne disliked upsets in the morning.

‘Leaving matters feline aside, why have you come to see me? Not just breakfast, surely, since you didn’t come in through the front door?’

‘That laundry,’ said Agnes, putting down her cup.

‘The Magdalen Laundry at the convent?’

‘Yes. Things go on there…’ She stuck.

Phryne looked at Dot.

‘You tell the lady,’ said Dot bracingly. ‘I’ll sit here and say a rosary for your intention.’

Dot was so patently and transparently sincere, and already had a rosary in her pocket. Agnes took a strengthening gulp of tea and said, ‘It’s the girls, Miss. My lady. They’re worked too hard in their condition. If they won’t work then the sisters stand them on a concrete slab all day. Their legs swell so they can hardly walk. They feed them nothing but porridge. It’s a scandal.’

‘Yes, it certainly is,’ said Phryne. ‘Who can we tell?’

‘No one!’ wailed Agnes. ‘No paper will touch it, even if I dared to write it, and anyway I never learned much about writing.’

‘Is there anyone hidden in that laundry?’ demanded Phryne.

‘Well, no, my lady, I don’t think so, I know all of them.’ Agnes was surprised by the question. ‘There’s thirty-eight of ’em at present. No, thirty-seven.’

‘What happened to thirty-eight?’ asked Jane, who gravitated to numbers but did not think they should apply to humans.