Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (38 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I was very nearly putting you out of the window into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous darling!
. . .
now you can’t deny it, kitty!’

Lewis Carroll
Alice Through the Looking Glass

Five hours of sleep, and Miss Henderson awoke in pain and in fear, gasping for air.

‘Where am I?’ she whispered, and someone leaned over and turned up the bedside light. Dot helped Miss Henderson to sit up against her arm and found the little jar which Dr MacMillan had instructed the pharmacist to compound.

‘Don’t you try and talk yet, Miss, until I can put some of this stuff on your mouth. Doctor says that it might make your face a bit numb but that’ll be an improvement, eh?’

Dot smeared the cocaine ointment freely over the burns, using the little spatula supplied for the purpose, and then helped her patient to a drink.

‘There, that’s better, isn’t it? You’re in the Hon. Phryne Fisher’s house, and I’m Dot.’

Dot wondered fleetingly if Miss Henderson, too, was losing her memory, but this did not appear to be the case. The woman swallowed the barley water and smiled crookedly.

‘Yes, of course I remember, how nice this all is! What a lovely room, and a fire and all. And that is my favourite shade of peach,’ Miss Henderson took a little more of the cooling drink. ‘I can sit up on my own, really.’

‘All right, Miss, is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?’

‘Why,’ said Miss Henderson. ‘I believe that I am hungry. Indeed, I don’t think I have had anything to eat for ever so long. Can you fetch me something?’

‘Yes, Miss. How about a nice omelette, now? A little toast?’

‘That would be lovely,’ sighed Miss Henderson, relaxing into a pile of feather pillows—in all her life she had never had more than one pillow, as her mother had considered it unhealthy—and smiling a creditable smile.

Dot obtained an omelette and Mrs Butler set the tray daintily, including a napkin in a ring and a vase of flowers.

‘She’ll likely be overset, poor thing, with her mother killed and all that, not to mention being hurt,’ she fussed. ‘Don’t you drop that tray, now, Dot!’

‘I’ll be careful,’ promised Dot, and carried it steadily. She watched her patient eat, removed the plate, and brought in a small cup of custard and a pot of tea.

‘I did not mean to insult you when I said that Miss Fisher must be a trial,’ explained Miss Henderson. ‘I was very fond of my mother, and she was a trial. How old do you think I am?’ she went on, and Dot shook her head.

‘It’s hard to tell with all them burns, Miss. You sound young.’

‘So I am. I am twenty-seven. Younger, I guess, than your Miss Fisher, but Mother was convinced that I would never marry. “You’ll be with me until I die, Eunice,” she used to say—and now it’s true, poor Mother, though she never meant it like that. She was furious when Alastair came on the scene and wanted to marry me, and she did her best to get rid of him, but he proved to be of sterner stuff than the rest. She told him that she knew he was marrying me for my money, and he just smiled and agreed with her.’

‘So you’ve got money, Miss?’

‘Oh, a modest competance. It yields me three hundred a year, and the house is mine now.’

‘More tea, Miss? Do you want me to call this Alastair, then? We are on the telephone.’

‘He must be frantic,’ gasped Miss Henderson, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘And he wouldn’t know where I am! Oh, Lord, Dot, please, can you call him at his rooms, and tell him that I am quite safe and he can visit me? How could I have forgotten?’

‘It’s been a tiring day, Miss,’ said Dot, writing down the telephone number. ‘I’ll ring him, Miss, don’t you worry. You all right to be left? I’ll do it now.’

‘Yes, yes, please do it now,’ begged Miss Henderson, and Dot went out and closed the door.

Dot conveyed the message through the medium of a phone which appeared to be in a fish-and-chip shop somewhere in Lygon Street, Carlton. A young man’s voice came on the phone, breathless.

‘Hello, hello? Damn this instrument! Hello? Are you there?’

‘This is Miss Williams. I am calling for Miss Henderson,’ repeated Dot patiently for the fourth time. ‘Are you Mr Thompson?’

‘Yes, Alastair Thompson here, Miss Williams. Where is Eunice?’

‘Take down the address,’ said Dot. ‘221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda. Call tomorrow about three.’

‘Is she all right?’ bellowed the voice. Someone in the background was shrieking in Italian.

‘She’s burned her face with that chloroform and she’s upset about her mother. Come at three,’ yelled Dot and hung up.

Phryne had largely cured her of her dread of telephones, but she still thought them a clumsy means of exchanging ideas. She went back to Miss Henderson and advised that the young man would call the next day, and Miss Henderson looked even more alarmed.

‘I can’t let him see me like this!’ she wailed.

Phryne, having finished dinner, walked in at this point and heard the whole story in three minutes.

‘Simple, my dear, you shall have a veil. Perfectly proper and it will stop you from alarming your young man. What does he do, Miss Henderson?’

‘Please call me Eunice. He’s in final year Medicine, he will be on the wards next year. He’s twenty-five,’ she said simply, ‘And he wants to marry me.’

‘Very nice,’ said Phryne. ‘Here’s your medicine, Eunice. Drink it up like a good girl and I’ll see you in the morning. How do you feel?’

Eunice patted the pillow, luxuriating in more comfort than she had ever enjoyed and shocked at herself for being so pleased. ‘I feel fine,’ she sighed, swallowed her chloral hydrate (which tasted foul) and fell instantly asleep.

Dot allowed Phryne to drag her into the sitting-room.

‘Come into my parlour,’ said Phryne, grinning wolvishly, ‘and tell all. Who is this young man?’

‘He’s her intended, Miss, and her mother didn’t like him. That’s all I know about it. Give over pulling me, Miss, I didn’t get no more out of her, except that she seems to have had a fair old time with her mum. Not a nice old lady, Miss.’

‘No, she wasn’t. However, the plot thickens. I shall be delighted to meet this excellent young man. Care to play a game of cards, Dot? It appears that our Jane also remembers how to play chess, though she won’t beat Dr MacMillan.’

‘No, thanks, Miss, I want to have a bath and go to bed. It’s been a long day and I think I’ve a cold coming on.’

‘Poor Dot! Get Mrs B. to make you a whisky toddy, and take a really hot bath. I shall read, then—there’s a new novel I haven’t even glanced at. The bookshop really are hopeless—I don’t even recall ordering it.’

Dot climbed the stairs to her bathroom with her whisky toddy steaming in her hand. The last she saw of Phryne for the night was her concentrated, Dutch doll face bent over a book. But it was not the latest novel. It was Glaister, on poisons.

Jane slept soundly for about three hours, and then awoke to hear a small, odd sound. She lay frozen, gripped by a fear which was all the worse because she could not tell why she should be afraid. Something was scratching at the window. Jane, trembling, was in such an agony of fear that she could not bear to lie still any longer. She threw back the quilt and put her feet to the carpet, hoping that the bed would not creak. It creaked. She froze again. The room was as cold as ice. Nothing happened. Then the scratch came again, and an odd sound like an unoiled hinge. Was someone trying to open the window? That was too much. She leapt at the window and snatched back the curtain, unlocking the latch and thrusting at the frame. The window grated open with a gush of cold sleet and something small, cold and black half-fell into Jane’s lap. She shut the window again and locked it, cradling the creature in her arms. It was a kitten, perhaps six weeks old, thin as a little bag of bones and almost as cold as the weather. Jane clutched it to her bosom, shivering and laughing under her breath.

‘Oh, kitty, you gave me such a fright! You’re as cold as ice. Come on, kitty, you can come back to bed with me, and then we shall both be warm.’

Still trembling, Jane carried the icy bundle of wet fur back to her brightly patterned bed with the peach sheets, the Onkaparinga blankets and the quilt, and replaced herself in the small hollow in which she had formerly lain.

The kitten, warming into life, began to wash itself with precise licks, curled under the blankets, nestling under Jane’s chin. It was an unobservant animal, or it might have wondered why its rescuer cried herself to sleep.

Miss Eunice Henderson, tended by Dot, was washed and breakfasted by the time Phryne came in with a selection of veils and an armload of nightgowns.

‘That’s a perfectly sensible gown you’ve got on, Eunice, but you will need a change. Perhaps you’d like to borrow some of mine? And I’ve brought a few hats, we should be able to cobble something together.’

Eunice touched the fabrics reverently. Crêpe de Chine, silk, satin, all the luscious delicacy and flowing draperies of a whole harem-full of houris. Eunice tried to imagine herself in one of these extravagant garments and utterly failed.

‘I can’t wear any of these beautiful things, really, Phryne, I just wouldn’t look right in them.’

‘Oh, yes you would, you have a lovely figure—do you swim?—long legs and a swan neck. Something with a high neck, I think, to show off that jaw line, especially since we are going to conceal your face. What about this?’

She exhibited a satin robe and gown, cut in a rather medieval line, with high neck and flowing sleeves. They were edged in white rabbit fur, and were of a deep, mossy green.

‘They are beautiful,’ said Eunice. ‘All right, I will borrow them if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind, old dear. Now what about this hat? It matches the gown, and it has a nice long chin-veil.’

The hat was a Paris model, made by a
couturière
who actually liked women, and it was small and plain, but superbly made. In the gown and the hat, Eunice Henderson was astonished at how . . . well . . . really . . . how beautiful she looked. So was Phryne, who had not expected such an excellent result.

‘You really do look smashing, Eunice. I think you should stay in bed,’ said Phryne. ‘Dr MacMillan said so, and I have a great deal of respect for her opinions. Wait until she has dressed your face, and then we shall don the glad rags for your young man. Good morning, Jane. What have you got?’ Jane entered, still clad in the bitumen serge, and carrying something small and alive. She held it out to Phryne.

‘He came to my window last night. Can I keep him? Mrs Butler said that she needs a cat to keep down the mice, and he won’t eat much. Please.’

‘Of course you can keep him, Jane. He actually came to you? That is a great compliment.’ She took the kitten, which was so light that she feared it might float away. ‘If Mrs B. will have a cat, then he can stay. Take him out to the kitchen and give him a lot of food. Poor little creature is all skin and bone.’ The kitten, which Phryne had been stroking, purred and gave her thumb a quick lick, then walked off her hand and onto Jane’s shoulder, where he perched, holding on to the plait and balancing with his absurd scrap of a tail.

‘Isn’t he a pretty one,’ commented Miss Henderson. Jane beamed.

‘He will need a bath and a collar,’ said Phryne. ‘We will buy one this morning in town. We are going to get you some clothes, for I cannot stand that dreadful suit a moment longer. Mrs B. will look after the kitten. Have you given him a name?’ Jane paused at the door, the familiar listening look on her face.

‘I think he should be called Ember,’ she said, and vanished in the direction of the washing up and the milk delivery, in both of which Ember took a deep professional interest.

‘She’s coming along,’ commented Miss Henderson. ‘Poor child. Still, she’s fallen on her feet, finding you. As have I. There must be some cat in my family after all.’

Phryne left Dot and Mrs Butler to look after Eunice Henderson, and spent an interesting morning in the shops with Jane. The girl had good, if restrained taste, and seemed to prefer grey and dark blue, which certainly set off her brown-blonde hair and her brown eyes. Phryne bought two suits, shoes and stockings, and sufficient underwear and shirts for a week’s wear. Phryne’s laundry was sent to the Chinese every week. She laughed when Phryne suggested donating her black suit to the poor, and was still chuckling when Phryne stuffed the offending garments into the hands of a woman begging on the street corner near the station.

‘See, that earned us a blessing,’ said Phryne. ‘Giving things away is a good way of acquiring merit, and not too hard on the purse. Here’s our train, now, have we got everything?’ She checked over the parcels. The collar and the flea-soap for Ember; the chrysanthemums, the unspoilt product of a hothouse, for Dot, who doted on them; the small vial of expensive Lalla perfume and a box of Rachel
poudré riz
for Phryne. The suitcase and all the rest of the clothes were to be sent on by the shops.

‘Yes, that’s everything, and here’s the train.’

They found a corner seat and Phryne talked amiably with the girl all the way home, reflecting that good clothes make a great difference to an adolescent. Her gawkiness had been concealed by fine tailoring, and now she was such a refreshing sight that an elderly gentleman opposite them could not take his eyes off her all the way to St Kilda, and on their way out of the train offered Phryne compliments on her sister.

Phryne laughed, linked arms with Jane, and walked along the sea front. The wind was cold but Jane was warm inside her new woollen topcoat, and her new shoes hardly hurt her feet at all.

‘Miss Fisher?’ asked Jane, tugging at Phryne’s arm.

‘Mmm?’

‘Why are you doing all this for me?’

‘What? For you? Well, there are several reasons. Because that nice policeman asked me to mind you. Because I would not hand a dog over to the Welfare. Because you are a mystery and mysteries interest me. Because you are intelligent and I am interested in establishing a scholarship for intelligent girls. Because you rescue black kittens. Also,’ said Phryne, stopping and turning to face the girl, ‘because I was very poor, as poor as I think you must have been, and I was rescued, and I think that I should return the favour. Does that answer your question?’