Daring Masquerade

Chapter One

"Mrs. White hates you, Harriet. I think it's because you have such lovely red hair." Elsie, the seventeen year old scullery maid examined an encrusted pan.

"Pretty!" Harry slammed a saucepan down on the sink. "I'm a wreck."

Six days a week scrubbing and scraping for the tyrannical Mrs. White had seen to that. She pushed irritably at a curl slipping out from under her cap.

Her cheek still smarted from the slap she had received half an hour before, when the horrible witch of a housekeeper accused her of not making the floor of the entrance foyer gleam. Desperation for money and a place to live near the convalescent hospital stopped her from telling Mrs. White exactly what she thought of her.

"She gets angry when you go off to visit your brother," Elsie continued.

"I don't care what the old cow thinks of me. Once Gil recovers we'll leave Melbourne. I'll never come back here again." She hated the city with its crowds of bustling people, noise and selfish, hypocritical society types.

Their employer, Sebastian Littlejohn, carried his head high, and liked to think of himself as a respected pillar of society. The whole family wallowed in luxury while a sadistic housekeeper treated their servants like slaves. Harry scrubbed with vigor, wishing she could scrub those hypocrites off the face of the earth.

She'd give up ten years of her life to expose them for their stinginess. Dark stuffy attic rooms shared by the servants and dreadful, inedible food. They treat us worse than their dogs. She whipped up her anger to give her the energy to keep on scrubbing.

Squalor and poverty prevailed in the poorer suburbs. She shuddered. On their rundown farm they at least had plenty to eat and fresh air to breathe. The dilapidated boarding house in Collingwood, her first taste of Melbourne life, still haunted her dreams at night.

Thank goodness it had been summertime when she stayed there. Judging by the damp smell of decay, the building would have leaked when it rained. Huge rats more than a foot long scurried around the back alleys, where rotting garbage and excrement from overflowing privies mingled, giving off the vilest of smells. Whole families lived in one or two rooms in buildings in such a state of decay, they should have been demolished years ago.

We are definitely going to take those farmhand jobs advertised by Ross Calvert at his cattle station, Devil's Ridge. She used her fingertips to wipe the perspiration off her brow. She couldn't bear working here for much longer, and pretending to be Gil's kid brother what a lark that would be.

Cutting her hair and wearing loose, baggy clothes to hide her feminine shape would be easy. Luckily she was finely built. Skinny Gil always said. Buying horses that were experienced with cattle, and finding their way up to an isolated property like Devil's Ridge were their main obstacles.

"Do you want to go to a picture show with Ted and me?" Elsie asked, interrupting her train of thought. "He could bring a friend along from camp. That's if the old dragon lets us off."

"No thanks."

Harry recalled the gangling, awkward Ted who served as a cook at the Broadmeadows Army Camp. His friends were probably of the same stature, whereas Gil had been so handsome when he marched off to war, the khaki army uniform suiting his blond good looks and lithe athletic build. He had inherited their mother's big blue eyes; whereas she had been stuck with nondescript, not quite green ones.

"I won't go out with a soldier, Elsie. They go off to war and get themselves killed or come back maimed. Anyway, after I've seen Gil I'll hang around here in case they need help at the garden party. The old battle-axe would make you stay otherwise, even if it is Saturday."

"I don't know how you can bear going to that convalescent hospital all the time, seeing those poor crippled soldiers. If something like that happened to Ted, I'd die." Elsie sobbed into her apron.

"It's terrible, but I have to go. Gil needs me."

They were once fine, dashing young men. Harry blinked back tears as she started scrubbing a baking dish encrusted with burnt cake. How did cook manage to burn everything? The unfairness of it all. The gallant warriors, blinded and limbless from the 1915 Turkish campaign on Gallipoli had returned home, not to a hero's welcome, but to be shunted off to makeshift hospitals. Hidden away so the public would not feel sickened by the sight of them. The papers, egged on by the politicians, mentioned only valiant battles and the glorious dead.

"You'll scrub a hole in that," Elsie said.

"Haven't you finished yet?" Mrs. White, a large woman with a face carved like a gargoyle minced into the kitchen.

"No, there were too many of them," Harry answered back defiantly, while a trembling Elsie lowered her head.

"I warned you before, missy." She swung her hand and Harry ducked. "You curb your insolent tongue or I'll report you to Mr. Littlejohn."

"Report away. Does he know how you brutalize your staff?" Harry boldly met the fury in her eyes.

The woman's mean eyes narrowed to slits. "Watch your mouth, or I won't let you go and visit your cripple of a brother."

"Gil is not a cripple, and you can't stop me from seeing him," Harry yelled. "You're a disgraceful woman. How dare you sneer at a wounded soldier?"

Mr. Littlejohn appeared at the doorway of the kitchen, a fat, pompous little man in a too-tight suit.

"What on earth is going on, Mrs. White? I can hear this screeching out in the hallway."

"This lazy little chit is being insolent to me."

Harry turned on him. "This evil woman is slinging off at my brother. He's a wounded soldier from Gallipoli, surely he deserves some respect?"

"Quite so. I'm sure Mrs. White didn't mean any disrespect."

"Of course she did."

He backed out of the kitchen. Anything to avoid a confrontation, you henpecked, cowardly fat toad. He only returned home early because of the family's little soiree. Cucumber and cress sandwiches, miniature pies and pastries, tea and coffee, all the delicacies rich people indulged themselves with.

"Right, I'll fix you, my girl." Mrs. White pushed the door shut to block out any noise.

She grabbed Harry, slammed her against the brick baker's oven, held her there with a madwoman's strength and administered chopping blows to her head and neck. Under such savagery Harry feared she might be decapitated, but stood her ground.
I won't cry out. Old witch can kill me, but I won't beg for mercy.
She gritted her teeth, trying desperately to fight the swirling mist coming down over her eyes. From a million miles away she heard Elsie's terrified sobs.

Harry regained consciousness, her head throbbed and she couldn't focus her eyes. It must be nighttime because the darkness was absolute. As she tried to move, every bone screamed with agony. She must have been unconscious for hours.

Inch by painful inch, she rolled over, dragged herself into a sitting position. It wasn't nighttime as a sliver of light came from under a door. Shock raced through her. She'd been shut in the cellar under the kitchen. Dear God, Mrs. White had thrown her down the stairs. Would she let her die down here? Vicious old cow was capable of anything.

"Calm yourself, Harry Martin, don't be so ridiculous." No one knew she was here. All Mrs. White needed to say was she up and left, and no one would be any the wiser. Elsie knew, but would she be too cowed to say anything?

No one would miss her except Gil. God, she wanted to scream, but knew it would be useless. On hands and knees, she dragged herself up the steps leading to the door. After banging against the solid wooden door several times she realized the futility of it. She was virtually entombed until someone let her out.

Gil would be waiting, wondering why she did not come as she normally did. She slumped on the step and forced back the screams clogging her throat. Would he feel she'd washed her hands of him like the army had? Think that she couldn't be bothered with him anymore? Ashamed of him even? Something like this could be the catalyst for him to completely break down. His poor troubled mind was poised on a knife's edge. Why did she deliberately defy Mrs. White? Why couldn't she just have done the woman's bidding for once?

* * *

Private Gilbert Martin sat on a bench in the leafy garden of the convalescent home waiting for Harry to arrive. Unlike her to be late. For the last few weeks she had been regular as clockwork.

He wore his army uniform today so they could go for a walk outside the hospital grounds. He fretted until finally he could stand it no longer. Rising to his feet he started across the lawn, waving to his mate Freddy O'Donnell who sat in his wheelchair with a rug covering the stumps of his legs.

He should stop feeling sorry for himself and concentrate on getting better so they could get out of Melbourne. Harry hated city life. He had to forget what happened over there.

After lying out in no-man's land for two days someone had eventually dragged him into one of the trenches. It took a few more days for him to make it to the Casualty Clearing Station. Maggots gnawing at the stump of his shattered hand saved his arm, maybe even his life, by eating out the gangrene. At the hospital in Alexandria the army surgeon amputated his hand a couple of inches above the wrist.

"You're lucky, soldier. This is your ticket home," he'd said.

Lucky! He didn't think so, but Harry did. Brave, resourceful Harry, with her reckless plans. They couldn't possibly take those jobs with Ross Calvert at Devil's Ridge, no matter how good the pay sounded. Sheer madness to even consider it.

One of the nurses rushed up to him. "Private Martin, I've had the strangest message from someone called Elsie, a maid who works with your sister."

"What's wrong with Harry?" Fear surged through him. Without her he wouldn't want to live.

"The girl mentioned something about her being locked in the cellar by the housekeeper. I must have misunderstood. Of course, she sounded terribly upset, almost hysterical."

He stood up, straightening his shoulders and fisting his good hand to stop it trembling. "I'm going around there to find out what's happened. Old bitch of a housekeeper hates Harry."

"You can't. Matron wouldn't allow it."

"It's only five minutes away. I'll be back before she even knows I'm gone. Please." He put on his best wheedling voice, staring at the nurse with wide eyes.

"All right," she relented, "don't be long."

Harry always said the beseeching puppy-look would melt any woman's heart so he often used it to get his own way. It's still working. He grinned at his success.

How many times had he used this ploy to save himself and Harry from getting a flogging at school, after one of her mad pranks landed them in trouble? Reckless maybe, and stubborn, but she had a heart of pure gold.

The summer sun burned his head as he traipsed along. Why hadn't he thought to wear his hat? Thank goodness he remembered where she worked. Number forty-seven, was a double-storied, red-brick mansion with fancy iron lace work on the balcony. Perspiration soaked the collar of his uniform jacket by the time he pushed the front gate open. Posh place. He glanced around the well-maintained gardens.

His finger was poised ready to press the doorbell. "Gilbert?"

"Yes." He swung around to see a girl in a black maid's uniform skulking around the side of the house.

"I'm Elsie." She scuttled towards him. "I rang the hospital. Mrs. White's done something terrible to Harriet. Bashed her and threw her down in the cellar."