Away With The Fairies (5 page)

‘Does anyone else from the magazine live here?’ she asked.

‘Mr Bell is gardening,’ replied Miss Grigg.

‘So he’s Agricola?’ said Phryne. ‘Excellent article he did on irises last month. Too late to plant any now but I’ve clipped it out for next year.’

She was lying. It had been clipped, certainly, but only at the special request of Jack Robinson. Miss Gallagher was examining Phryne with frank interest.

‘I reckon she’d do, don’t you, Grigg?’ she fluted.

‘Do for what?’ asked Miss Grigg warily.

‘For the fashion notes.’ Miss Gallagher sounded almost scornful. ‘Miss Alston’s been doing them but she’s away at the moment, you remember? Her mother’s ill. We’ve got no one to do the fashion notes. I’m no good,’ she said complacently. ‘I don’t know the first thing about fashion.’

‘Well, yes … but, Gally, you can’t just drag Miss Fisher into
Women’s Choice
because we’ve got a staffing problem.’

‘You won’t be dragging me,’ said Phryne, making up her mind suddenly. ‘I’ve never seen how a magazine works. I’d be interested. Where shall I go and when?’

‘Well, if you mean it …’ Miss Grigg sounded warier. ‘Little Bourke, corner of Hardware Lane, third floor, tomorrow at nine.’

‘See you then,’ said Phryne, setting down her cup. She hefted the box, smiled at both women and left through the Italian garden, scented with basil and tomatoes.

‘Miss Fisher?’ Miss Grigg caught up with her. ‘I meant to ask you, since you came in with that cop. Miss Lavender was doing a fairy page for us. She said it was finished but she hadn’t yet had time to deliver it. I know this sounds callous, but business is business and deadlines are deadlines.’

‘I’m sure that we can manage that. What’s it called?’

‘“Hilda and the Flower Fairies”,’ said Miss Grigg, evincing signs of well-controlled nausea discernible to the trained eye. ‘Revolting, I know, but the Ed thinks that children like it. Their mothers do, anyway. When she was on hols and I did one issue and ditched the fairy page, I got letters of complaint by the armload. However. “Not that one woman can, but that every woman can”. Ours is not to reason why. It’s a double page foolscap with sketches of fairies all around the edge. It should be in an envelope addressed to the mag. Be obliged if you could bring it along—if you really meant it about the fashion notes.’

‘I really meant it,’ said Phryne. Miss Grigg gave a shy smile, endearing on her weathered face.

‘Don’t worry about Gally,’ she said gruffly. ‘She don’t mean no harm. It’s just her way.’

‘No harm, no harm,’ said Phryne, with Shakespeare.

‘No, faith, boys, no harm i’ all th’ world,’ Miss Grigg completed the quote complacently, and grinned.

Phryne found Robinson almost asleep in the Tuscan garden, with his hat over his nose. The scents were cooler here, of worn stone and water.

‘Come along, my dear,’ she said, tweaking the hat away in time to catch him with his eyes closed. ‘I must get along home. I’ve got to start work tomorrow.’

‘Work?’ asked Jack, rubbing his jaw to stop a yawn. ‘I really must dig myself a little pond. A few goldfish, some nenuphar. And a little fountain. That tinkle of water is so soothing. Did you say something about work, Miss Fisher?’

‘As from now, I am fashion notes for
Women’s Choice
,’ said Phryne proudly.

Jack Robinson stared at her and found no reply.

Phryne reached home. Something whipped past her nose as she opened the gate. ‘A woman might almost think she was being shot at,’ Phryne said to herself. If it was a shot, it had come from the road and the shooter would be long gone. The bullet—if it had been a bullet—was lost in the garden. Probably a bee, thought Phryne, or a flying chip of road metal. I really must control this tendency to paranoia, she thought, and knocked on her own door just as Dot was beginning to wonder where she was.

‘Mrs Butler says cold collation tonight, but the beetroot is in aspic so it won’t leap out on you like you say it always does, Miss. The magazines you asked for are on your desk. Have we a new case, Miss?’

‘Yes and no. Or perhaps no and yes. And beetroot definitely has a fatal attraction to my person. The only thing I own that isn’t attractive to the pestilential vegetable is that red silk shirt, and that’s because it’s beetroot coloured,’ said Phryne heatedly.

‘After dinner, Dot, dear, we must go through those magazines and work out the philosophy. Do you read
Women’s Choice
?’

‘Only since I came to live with you, Miss. Before that, the doctor’s wife used to take in
Australasian Home Journal
. Boring, I thought. All sketches of bathrooms and new kitchens with lots of pipes. Never went to the trouble of getting me a new kitchen, or a new sink either. Or a gas stove. Mrs Butler says she won’t never go back to the old way of cooking with a fuel stove. Gas is clean and in weather like this the kitchen isn’t like a foretaste of hell—that’s what she says, Miss.’

Dot believed absolutely in both God and the devil, which meant she never used the word or concept of hell lightly. But she was a just young woman and added, ‘And she might have been right at that. Those poor sinners, having to spend eternity in that kind of temperature. Must have made them regret all their sins.’

‘Yes, it must have. I remember fuel stoves. Things have certainly come a long way since then. Though I think that the greatest of all inventions is hot water. The difference it has made in the world is remarkable. I used to cat-wash, Dot, did you?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ said Dot. ‘Standing on a little mat in the bedroom with ice forming on the windows and the kettle getting colder by the moment.’

‘And one was always cold,’ said Phryne, consideringly. Both she and Dot shivered at the same moment, remembering the grubby flannel, the fugitive soap, the pervasive sense of not-quite removed-grime and cold.

‘Never mind, Dot, dear,’ said Phryne bracingly. ‘We never have to do that again.’

Dot, thinking of deep baths full of lathery hot water above which the only part of Dot which could be seen was her nose, laughed and agreed.

‘A bath,’ said Phryne. ‘Then dress for dinner, and a little research before I launch myself on the world of magazines. It should be most interesting.’

Later, lying deep in foam, Phryne was greeted by Ember, the black cat, who had never entirely reconciled himself to the idea that humans voluntarily shucked their fur and immersed themselves in the embrace of such an unreliable element, which would not even bear the weight of a decent feline. He batted at the bubbles with one sable velvet paw.

Phryne shook one hand as dry as possible and caressed his ears.

‘I have had such a strange day, Ember, dear,’ she said. ‘I have met some very strange people. And tomorrow is likely to be even odder.’

Ember tapped her nose with a playful paw. He stood with perfect balance on the curved edge of the claw-footed bath, tail hanging outside for balance, witch’s-familiar-black with eyes like emeralds.

‘I’ll tell you all about it when I get home,’ promised Phryne. Ember purred, satisfied, and leapt down.

Phryne sometimes wondered about Ember. But if he was a fiend, as Dot had occasionally called him (his habit of clawing out the contents of stocking drawers had earned him some criticism, especially when the stockings were silk), he was so far keeping quiet about it, which was decently reticent of him.

Phryne, drying herself, decided that she would only have one cocktail before dinner.

CHAPTER FOUR

The third line, divided, shows the subject distraught
amid the startling movements going on.

Hexagram 51: Kan
The I Ching Book of Changes

Phryne paused at the top of the stairs. The building had one of those turn of the century lifts which induce a desire for exercise in all but the terminally indifferent or famously brave. The landing was painted in a tasteful shade of ivory with several flower prints: a bottlebrush, a grevillea, a branch of golden wattle. The lack of style was familiar. Miss Lavender was an excellent botanist. No one could fault her meticulous, relentless accuracy. Her meticulous, faultless, uninspired and perfectly dead accuracy.

Phryne shook herself. She had dressed with care in a forest-green knitted cardigan ensemble, with pockets, and a green and silver georgette scarf. Her skirt was of medium length, her oatmeal straw hat was small and decorated only with a rose. Her handbag had a strap and her portfolio was the only jarring note: bright pink. It was, of course, Miss Lavender’s, and contained the adventures of Hilda among the flower fairies.

Hilda, the flower fairies and the lack of a second cocktail had given Phryne the most peculiar dreams, in which she flew on gossamer wings over a ruined island and saw Lin Chung crucified below her. Flies fed at the corners of his mouth. She had not read the letters in Miss Lavender’s box, but she had read eleven back issues of
Women’s Choice
. It was a sober, respectable journal for the thinking woman of taste and sensibility, and she was mildly interested to learn which personalities went with the pseudonyms.

Only mildly. Underneath the calmly fashionable exterior, a considerable part of Phryne was concerned with Lin Chung. That had been a very nasty dream. She opened the door and went into a large office.

It was full of desks, flowers, clothes, people, typewriters and confusion. Phryne stood back as a girl rushed past her with an armload of pasted-up papers, hair flying out of its bun and pencil behind her ear. A young woman with ink on her face exclaimed, ‘Blast! Who’s taken my scissors? Who’s bloody stolen my damned scissors?’, and an old lady with white hair reproved, ‘Language, dear. Here, take my scissors, but mind I want them back.’ A tottering crash announced that a huge pile of boxes containing something breakable had succumbed to gravity.

A youngish woman with a pale, blank face threw her pencil to the ground and said, ‘That’s it, then,’ and burst into tears. The rest of the women rose to comfort her and the door at the end of the room crashed open.

‘Ladies, I must have some quiet!’ cried a short, plump woman in grey. She cast one look around the room and said, ‘Oh dear. “Confusion on our banners wait”, again. Now let’s see, what’s wrong?’

Phryne saw her surge into the room, patting, pushing and instructing with a brisk and motherly high-handedness which no one seemed to resent. This must be Mrs Charlesworth, the editress.

‘Mrs McAlpin, can you take Miss Phillips out for a short walk? Say, fifteen minutes. You might bring us back some of the baker’s biscuits. Take the money out of petty cash, there’s a dear.’

Miss Phillips accepted Mrs Charlesworth’s handkerchief, mopped her face, and put on her hat. Mrs McAlpin rummaged in a cash tin, took out precisely eighteenpence, and preceded her to the door. Mrs Charlesworth addressed the others.

‘What was in the boxes? The china she was reviewing? Oh dear. Can’t be helped. We shall just have to confess to the manufacturer, and see if we can give them a good review if the stuff isn’t altogether ghastly, eh? Now, what more? Here are your scissors, Miss Prout. Why not tie a tape on them and attach them to your belt? Where is Miss Grigg?’

‘Gone to talk to the radio people about the loudspeaker system they’re touting. She had her doubts about it. But it’ll fit in with our series on how to build your own radio and she’s a whizz on all those technical things,’ said a slim girl at the nearest desk. ‘Gally’s in the kitchen and her fashion plate is supposed to be coming this morning. She’ll be late. Those clotheshorses have no sense of time.’

Slowly all eyes in the room swivelled to look at Phryne, now sitting on one corner of a desk and looking amused. They took her in, from delicate French heel to georgette scarf, and a blush ran around most of the room.

Mrs Charlesworth, without a quiver of a smile, said, ‘And I am giving you the next meditation to write, Miss Herbert, on the theme “Think before you speak”. Five hundred words on my desk in the morning. I’m sure it will be most illuminating. Good morning. Miss Fisher, is it not? Do try to forgive us. We’re going to press in three days, and that always makes us crotchety. We shall have tea when Mrs McAlpin gets back with the biscuits. Perhaps you would like to come into my office? Now, ladies, if you please, less noise. Miss Fisher isn’t used to us, and I have an editorial to write. And I have already written one on “The Value of Silence”. Miss Herbert, if you have a list of questions and the photographs, perhaps you could prepare them. Half an hour of absolute stillness and we may end the day relatively sane. Clear?’

General murmurs of agreement. With considerable dignity, Mrs Charlesworth conducted Miss Fisher into her office and shut the door.

She sat down and fanned her face with her hand. ‘I can’t imagine why I do this,’ she murmured. ‘But then, why do any of us do anything? I don’t suppose you would consent to be interviewed on being a private detective, Miss Fisher?’

‘No,’ said Phryne.

‘Professional confidentiality?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne.

‘I suspected as much. Never mind. We are quite at a loss for the fashion page now that Miss Alston has gone to see to her mother. She left some notes, perhaps they will be of use. And I am told that you have been called in by the police in the matter of Miss Lavender?’

‘Just for some—well, fashion advice. Here is her last commission, by the way. I checked with the investigating officer and he said it was all right to take it.’

‘“Hilda and the Flower Fairies”?’ The editress’s face was alight with pleasure.

‘Regrettably, yes.’

‘I know they are banal beyond belief and unworthy of a sensible magazine, but the mothers love them. I suppose it fits in with what they think their children ought to be like, instead of the grubby little beasts they really are. It’s all Dr Stopes’s fault.
Radiant Motherhood
, indeed. But we do what we can, Miss Fisher. That’s our watchword. “Not that one woman can, but that every woman can”.’

‘Miss Grigg quoted it,’ said Phryne. ‘What does it mean?’

‘In every generation there have been remarkable women. Marie Curie, for instance. Dr Elizabeth Blackwell. Women who have sacrificed everything—marriage, motherhood, even their lives, like Nurse Cavell.’ Mrs Charlesworth pushed over a tin of gaspers and held a light for Phryne. ‘But they could be ignored, for the purpose of changing how women are seen by the world of men. They assume the same position as saints, like Joan of Arc. Her heroism and martyrdom did not change the general view of women one whit. The saints and martyrs and remarkable ones are freaks, sports, something so out of the common that no notice need be taken of them. Am I making myself clear?’