The Ivory Rose (21 page)

Georgiana followed a few minutes behind with three large mugs of foaming hot chocolate and a plate of shortbread.

‘Are you all right, Connie?’ asked Georgiana, her brow wrinkled with concern.

Connie pulled a face, one eye slightly puffy from the slap.

‘Of course,’ replied Connie. ‘It was nothing worse than Agnes has given me a hundred times before, but I thought I’d better act up for Miss Rutherford and Doctor Anderson so they thought Agnes had
really
hurt me.’

Jemma and Connie sipped appreciatively on the hot chocolate.

‘This is delicious!’ Jemma proclaimed, licking the milky froth from her top lip.

Georgiana grinned.

‘Doctor Anderson stood over Agnes while she made it, to ensure she put in heaps of chocolate,’ Georgiana giggled with glee. ‘Agnes was fuming. She had no choice but to make it that way – doctor’s orders! She looked like she would have happily put poison in our chalices instead of chocolate.’

Jemma paused thoughtfully.
Poison again! Who would want to poison Georgiana?

Their reprieve was sweet but short-lived. As soon as Doctor Anderson had left and Miss Rutherford had retired to the drawing room to write letters, Agnes was storming up the stairs to order them back to work.

‘Jemma, you can clean Miss Rutherford’s room,’ barked Agnes. ‘Make sure you do it perfectly. Connie, black all the fire grates.’

Connie and Jemma exchanged glances. Jemma licked the last of the chocolate from her mug and stood up to follow Agnes down to the kitchen.

Jemma trudged back up the stairs, carrying a pail with dusters, rags and beeswax. Miss Rutherford’s bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking Johnston Street towards the bay.

Jemma knocked on the door quietly. There was no response, so she pushed it open to an empty room. She had never been into this bedroom before – Agnes hadn’t trusted her to clean the mistress’s inner sanctum. Jemma gazed about curiously.

A large, bright window, framed with cream lace curtains, overlooked the gardens and the view of the bay in the distance. An unmade, four-poster bed stood in the centre, draped with mosquito netting and piled with overstuffed bolsters and pillows. A marble fireplace stood on the third wall, opposite the windows, with a stately dressing table and chest of drawers on either side of the bed.

Jemma put down her pail and began making the bed. Agnes had taught her to make beds perfectly, with all the sheets tight as a drum and the crimson coverlets smoothed over flawlessly. Jemma then fluffed up the feather pillows, which released a cloud of soft, floral perfume.

Jemma moved to dust the chest of drawers and then the cedar dressing table, with its ornate turned legs and frame. Using a soft rag, she polished the timber with beeswax. Jemma found the work soothing and comforting – almost like meditation.

On top of the chest of drawers was a silver tray with a brown glass medicine bottle stoppered with a cork alongside a silver teaspoon. Jemma picked up the bottle and read its printed label:

Laudanum again
, thought Jemma.
Another poison
. She uncorked the bottle and sniffed the red-brown liquid – she could smell a mixture of strong alcohol, a bitter, herbal scent and a syrupy, sugary overtone. She hurriedly re-stoppered the cork and replaced the bottle on its tray.

The bottle looked oddly familiar, then Jemma remembered her trip to the apothecary when she had picked up half a dozen ones just like this for Miss Rutherford.
I wonder if all six bottles were laudanum?
thought Jemma.

Next to the tray was a small timber box, ornately carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Jemma picked it up and polished the lid and sides. She went to place the box back on the chest of drawers but clumsily dropped it, spilling the contents. Jemma stooped to retrieve the items that had spread over the carpet – a gold brooch, a string of pearls, a few buttons, a silver-framed photograph and a box of pills.

She scooped the items back into the box carefully. Her fingers closed over the silver frame. Jemma recognised the photograph instantly. It was the same portrait that Georgiana had shown her of her father – except the matching pair, the photograph of Georgiana’s mother, was missing.

How odd
, thought Jemma.
You’d think that Miss Rutherford would keep a photo of her sister, rather than her brother-in-law, in her treasure box.

The last item was a rectangular box of pills:

Jemma read the back of the box:

Arsenic wafers,
thought Jemma in dismay.
Arsenic is the same poison that was in Agnes’s rat poison and Ned’s pesticide spray
.

Jemma opened the box. It was half full of flat, white pills. Someone had already taken a large number of them. But who? Harriet Rutherford? Or Georgiana Rose Thornton …

The sound of hurried footsteps came from the landing. Jemma quickly closed the pills, jammed them back in the ornamental box with the other items, replaced the box on the dressing table and assiduously began rubbing the dresser legs with an oily rag.

Miss Rutherford burst into the room, panting slightly, as though she had been running.

‘Oh, Jemima, I didn’t expect to see you here!’ exclaimed Miss Rutherford, looking flustered and short of breath.

‘I’m just finishing up, ma’am,’ replied Jemma. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No, not at all,’ Miss Rutherford assured her. ‘How is Miss Georgiana today? Is she feeling better after her latest bout of illness? Has she been taking her medicine?’

Miss Rutherford’s eyes flickered to the chest of drawers.

‘We are following Doctor Anderson’s instructions to the letter,’ confirmed Jemma. ‘She has been feeling a bit weak and dizzy, but there has been no more vomiting.’

Miss Rutherford looked distracted and not much comforted by this news.

‘Please leave me now, Jemima,’ ordered Miss Rutherford, rubbing her head fitfully. ‘I’m not feeling well and need to lie down for a while. My nerves are overstretched from all this excitement. Would you mind unlacing me before you go?’

Miss Rutherford turned around. Jemma deftly undid the long row of tiny, silk-covered buttons at the back of her dove-grey dress. Miss Rutherford stepped out of the billows of silk, dropping the voluminous layers of petticoats to the floor. Jemma scooped the material into her arms and draped them with the dress over the nearby armchair.

Miss Rutherford was left standing in her underwear: long, frilly drawers, a daintily embroidered cotton chemise and a pair of stays tightly laced down the back, nipping her waist into a fashionable hourglass silhouette. The knot was difficult to undo, and Jemma fumbled until she could loosen it.

When the stays were released, Miss Rutherford let out a sigh of relief, breathing deeply. Jemma wondered how she could breathe at all with the cruel corset crushing her abdomen all day. Miss Rutherford hurried to the chest of drawers where she took the brown laudanum bottle and, with shaking hands, poured out a teaspoonful.

Jemma dawdled, folding up the stays and putting them away.

Miss Rutherford gulped down the liquid, grimacing at its bitter taste. She licked her lips and then poured herself another teaspoon, which she sipped more delicately.

‘I have a dreadful headache and need my medicine for the pain,’ explained Miss Rutherford, returning the bottle to its tray.

Miss Rutherford kicked off her shoes and peeled off her stockings, flinging them onto the floor.

Jemma raised her eyebrows and stooped to pick up the discarded items. She moved around the room silently, shaking out the grey gown and hanging it in the wardrobe, then folding each of the petticoats.

Miss Rutherford lay down on the bed, her head propped on pillows, a rug tossed over her body. Gradually, her stiff posture relaxed and a dreamy look came over her face. Jemma noticed her pupils had constricted to pinpoints.

‘Could you draw the curtains for me please J … J … Jane, I mean Jenny, dear child?’ slurred Miss Rutherford lethargically. ‘I’m going to have a little rest. I do hope you are happy here with us. It’s a lovely place Rosethorne, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted it … It is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen … I love Rosethorne, more than anything else … Thank you, Janey. You can leave me now.’

Jemma gathered up her bucket and rags and quietly slipped out of the room, her head buzzing with everything she had seen.

In the kitchen, Agnes had planned her revenge. Jemma and Connie had to scrub the kitchen floor again. An iron
bucket held hot water and lye. The girls had to scour the floor on their hands and knees with wooden scrubbing brushes and sandsoap, then mop up the dirty water with rags.

The petticoats did little to pad their knees from the hard floor, and the harsh alkaline lye made Jemma’s hands sting and burn. Her arms ached as she rubbed back and forth, and the sweat ran down her forehead, stinging her eyes.

‘Sorry, Connie,’ apologised Jemma. ‘It’s my fault we have to scrub this floor again. If I hadn’t stood up to Agnes she wouldn’t be so angry. I should just have stayed quiet.’

‘And let her beat me?’ replied Connie. ‘Don’t you worry. It’s worth every second to see Agnes in trouble with Miss Rutherford. And when she sprawled at your feet – I thought I was going to die laughing. It was a sweet scene indeed.’

In the evening, Jemma escaped to the garden at dusk to pick flowers for Miss Rutherford’s dinner tray, carrying a flat basket over her arm and a pair of sharp scissors. She wandered through the garden, inhaling the scent of lavender, gardenias and roses. To the west, she saw the sun setting in a blaze of crimson and hot pink, then to the east she saw a huge full moon majestically climbing into the sky. It shone golden bright, glittering a pathway across the black bay.

A full moon
, thought Jemma.
I wonder if it’s a full moon at home?

Sighing, Jemma twisted her ivory rose pendant and wondered what her mum and dad were doing now, and Ruby and Sammy, and everyone else she had left behind.

When all the evening chores had been done, she followed Connie upstairs, changed into her nightclothes and climbed into bed, turning off the kerosene lamp.

‘Connie, when I was in Miss Rutherford’s room, I found a box of arsenic wafers,’ said Jemma in the darkness. ‘Do you know what they’re for?’

Connie snorted.

‘’Course, lots of ladies take arsenic wafers to make them more beautiful. It gives them that pale, frail, helpless, ladylike look.’

‘But arsenic is a deadly poison?’ asked Jemma.

‘Only if you take too many tablets at once,’ explained Connie. ‘Lots of ladies put arsenic and lead powder on their face to make their skin whiter and softer. I’ve thought of doing it to get rid of my freckles.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ exclaimed Jemma, sitting up straight.

Connie just grunted in reply, turning over and pulling the blanket over her head.

‘Connie, have you thought about leaving here and going back to school?’ suggested Jemma. ‘If you could just finish school, then you could train as a teacher or a nurse or something, and it would be a much better life than scrubbing floors forever.’

‘
Hmmmph
,’ replied Connie. ‘Can you
please
go to sleep!’

Connie was soon deep in slumber, breathing rhythmically. Jemma tossed and turned but couldn’t get comfortable.