The tea arrived on a silver tray. There was also a teacake, which Phryne cut and buttered immediately.
‘Never mind my history, come and help me eat some of these cakes,’ said Phryne, who hated teacake. ‘White tea, is it? And two lumps?’
Dorothy sniffed, was about to wipe her face on her gown, then remembered herself and retreated to the bathroom to find her handkerchief. While she poured the tea, Phryne reflected that Dorothy must be very tired. Revenge and release is just as much of a strain as hatred and murder. She palmed a small white pill and dropped it into the tea. Dorothy needed the sleep.
The girl returned and made a promising inroad into the teacake before she took up her cup.
‘I’ll ring an agency in the morning and find out how much I ought to pay you,’ said Phryne. ‘And tomorrow we shall buy you some clothes. The uniform will be paid for by me, and you can have an advance to buy your own clothes. We shall also pick up your box from the station.’
‘I think I’d better go to bed now,’ observed Dorothy thickly, and Phryne helped her to the small room, tucked her in, and before she closed the door, noted that the girl was fast asleep.
‘Two-and-six a week and her keep,’ said Phryne. She poured another cup of tea and lit a cigarette. ‘The poor little babe!’
Alice Greenham woke in a white bed, strangely docile, and floating above her tortured body on a cushion of morphia. Women clad in big white aprons came by, periodically, to do things to the body, which Alice felt belonged to someone else. They soaked it with cold water and laid a wet sheet over it. This looked comic, and she giggled. The baby, at least, was gone, and she could go back to her church-going, respectable home, unburdened of proof of her shame.
She had not believed that five minutes could change someone’s life. She had gone to a church-run dance, and had been enticed out into the bike shed by a boy she had always thought nice, a deacon’s son. They had leaned against the creaking wooden wall while he had fumbled with her clothes and whispered that he loved her and would marry her as soon as his father gave him a half-share in the shop. From that joyless, clumsy mating had come all this trouble. He had not seemed to know her when they next met, avoiding her eyes, and when she had told him about the baby he had shouted, ‘No! not me! You must have been going with plenty of blokes!’ And he had struck her across the face when she had persisted.
The nurses — she had identified them by their caps — were gathered around the body now. A woman in trousers was filling a syringe. Alice sensed that this was a crisis. She was sleepy and airy and light, and they were trying to drag her back to that suffering, twisting thing on the bed below. Well, she wouldn’t go. She had been hurt enough. That oily man, George, and his foul hands all over her. No, she wouldn’t go back, they couldn’t make her.
Now they were holding the body down. It struggled.
The woman in trousers was injecting something into the chest. The body slumped, and the nurses clustered around it.
She was unable to avoid a shriek as the body dragged her back and her poisoned womb convulsed. She opened her eyes, looked directly into Dr MacMillan’s face, and whispered, ‘It’s not fair. . I was all light. .’ before her words were extinguished in a long, hoarse scream. The fever had broken.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘All people that on earth do dwell Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. .’
‘The Old Hundredth’ Church of England Hymn
Phryne was poring over the newspaper’s society columns at breakfast when she heard Dorothy in the bathroom. Presently the young woman emerged, looking much refreshed. Phryne selected a knitted suit in beige and handed it over, together with a collection of undergarments and a pair of shoes. Dorothy dressed biddably enough, but Phryne’s shoes were too big for her.
‘Put on your slippers again, for the moment, and we’ll get you some shoes tomorrow — today’s Sunday. Listen to those bells! Enough to wake the dead!’
‘I s’pose that’s the idea,’ observed Dorothy, and Phryne looked up from her paper, reflecting that there was more to Dorothy than met the eye. The girl had ordered herself a large breakfast on Phryne’s instructions, and now sat placidly absorbing a mixed grill at eight of the morning as though she had never lain in wait with murder in her heart.
‘What do I have to do when I deliver them cards, Miss?’ she asked, painfully swallowing a huge mouthful of egg and bacon.
‘Just tell the man to wait, walk up to the front door, ring the bell, and give the card to the person who answers. You don’t need to say anything. I’ve put my address on the back. Can you manage it?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ agreed Dorothy thickly, through another mouthful.
‘Good. Now, I am lunching with Dr MacMillan at the Queen Victoria Hospital, and to fill in the time I shall go to church. So when you get back, see if you can introduce a little order into the clothes, eh? I shall return in the afternoon. Order whatever you like for lunch, but perhaps it would be better if you didn’t leave the hotel until I get back. We don’t want any trouble from your erstwhile employer, do we? Here’s the money for the taxi; pay what’s on the meter and two shillings tip, no more, and don’t forget to pick up your bundle from the station. I say, that suit does things for you, Dorothy! You look quite stylish.’
Dorothy blushed, accepted the money, which was more than she had seen in her life before, and gulped down the last of her tea. She stood up, smoothing the beige skirt, and said haltingly, ‘I’m ever so grateful, Miss. .’
‘Consider whether you still think so after you’ve tackled the mess,’ Phryne said briskly. ‘Got everything? Good, off you go now.’
Dorothy left, and Phryne smiled to herself, tossing up whether she would ever see the girl again, once set loose in possession of five pounds and a new dress. She mentally slapped herself for such cynical thoughts and reflected that it was indeed high time that she went to church.
An hour and a half later, the strollers in Melbourne would have noted a slim, self-possessed and beautifully groomed young woman sauntering down Swanston Street to the cathedral. It was a crisp, cool morning, and she was wearing a severe dark-blue silk suit, with a priceless lace collar, dark stockings and black shoes with a high heel. She had pulled a soft black cloche down over her hair, and the only note of eccentricity was her sapphire earrings, which glinted brighter than stained glass. She ascended the steps of the cathedral as if faintly surprised that the great west door had not been opened for her, and took her place in a back pew with economical grace. She accepted a service card and a hymn book from a jovial gentleman, and unbent sufficiently to smile her thanks. He looked familiar.
He was stout, ruddy and pleasant looking, tailored to the nth degree, with a shirt whiter than snow. As the organ struck up the ‘Old Hundredth’, Phryne recognised him as the man who had smiled across the dining-room last night.
She stood up to sing, and heard at her side a thundering bass to her light soprano, easily rising over the sheep-like bleating which passes for singing in most Church of England congregations.
All people that on Earth do dwell
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. .
Her neighbour was certainly adding a cheerful and forceful voice to the anthem. Phryne approved. She saw no reason to sing in church unless one meant to really sing. By the end of the hymn they were attracting a certain amount of attention from the polite citizens in the front pews, and Phryne smiled at her neighbour.