Authors: Rosemary McLoughlin
“Of course, ma’am.” Dixon reached out for Charlotte’s hand. “Come on, Charlotte, dear. We’ll go back to the nursery and do something nice.”
As soon as Edwina was halfway down the hill and too far away to hear, Dixon turned to Charlotte and said: “Go and make yourself scarce, Uglyface. I’ve enough on my plate without
having to look after a nuisance like you. Why don’t you go off and build one of those bridges you’re so fond of? And straighten up them shoulders!”
Charlotte slumped towards the walled garden, but doubled back when the two adults were out of sight, and made her way towards the stables.
By the time she arrived and pushed open one of the double doors, the baby carriage was placed against the wall in the shade and the courtyard was empty. As she sidled along the wall she noted
the sleeping Victoria and felt a sting of hatred for the sister she loved, before heading towards the voices she could hear coming from Manus’s office.
She put her ear against the door but wasn’t able to make out what was being said. The voices became softer and softer until the talking stopped altogether. The following silence was
punctuated by odd sounds. She risked peering in the small side window and couldn’t believe what she saw.
Her mother and Manus weren’t wearing all their clothes and her mother’s hair was hanging loose and the two of them were lying on a horse blanket on the floor doing funny things to
one another.
Charlotte watched for a few minutes with the same fascination she had experienced when she came upon Sid drowning a litter of kittens in the freshwater barrel.
Charlotte snatched the sleeping Victoria and her doll out of the baby carriage and passed under the arch through the open door which she had left ajar. She walked around the
stables, following the narrow earthen path that hugged the stable walls, and headed to the river. The muddy verge was slippery from all the rain. She skidded. The jolting movement she’d made
to prevent herself from falling woke the child, who was immediately alert, gazing around her to take in the unfamiliar surroundings.
As soon as they turned the corner onto the river bank and Victoria saw the rushing water, she wriggled to show she wanted to be placed on the ground. Charlotte put her down and took her
hand.
Both sisters were conscious of the novelty of the two of them on an adventure without any adult supervising them. A forbidden adventure. Walking alongside the river, which had a deep Dark
Waterhole and was always out of bounds.
Victoria was almost shy of her big sister, holding her hand and smiling up at her.
“Mummy’s pet,” Charlotte said sadly, not returning the smile.
Victoria, wearing a white dress and carrying her doll, walked confidently. She was advanced for her age, as Nurse Dixon never tired of pointing out, steady on her feet at ten months, whereas
Charlotte, the dummy, hadn’t taken her first steps until she was sixteen months old.
They continued on a little way to where a section of the bank had eroded, taking half the crumbling path with it. Victoria tripped on a dislodged lump of rubble and would have fallen into the
water if Charlotte hadn’t held her tightly. The doll flew from Victoria’s hand and landed on the bank, its hair trailing in the flooded river.
“Stay back,” Charlotte shouted as they bent at the same time to retrieve it. “I’ll get it for you.”
Victoria ignored her and, snapping up the sopping doll with a squawk of relief, clutched it to the bodice of her white dress.
“Now look what you’ve done, getting muck all over your front. Give the doll to me so I can wash it so we don’t get into trouble.”
“No,” said Victoria. Mud was now dribbling all the way down her skirt.
“Did you hear what I said? Give me the doll.”
“No.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“I’ll give you one more chance. Give it to me.”
Victoria looked bewildered and clutched the doll more tightly to her side. “No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis.
“Give it to me or you’ll cop it. Teresa Kelly can’t help you now. She’s gone for good. Vanished.”
Victoria stepped back. Charlotte leaned forward, grabbed the doll by the hair and wrenched it out of Victoria’s arm.
Victoria toppled backwards inches from the water. Charlotte pulled her to her feet. Victoria wailed and tugged at Charlotte’s skirt.
“Stop that noise.” Charlotte held the doll above her head and tried to pull her skirt free.
Victoria held on tighter and wailed louder.
“Shut up or they’ll hear you.”
Victoria’s howl rose to a full-blooded screech.
Mummy’s pretty little favourite didn’t look so pretty now with all that mucus running down her screwed-up face.
Charlotte lowered the doll. Victoria let go of the skirt and reached up to claim it. Charlotte held it within an inch of Victoria’s desperate, fluttering fingers.
How easy it would be to give it to her and watch her clasp it close, cease her caterwauling, and look with pleasure again at her older sister, who could take her hand and lead her back to the
courtyard, the dangerous adventure safely over. Easy, but not good for her, getting her own way just because she made a lot of noise.
With the dangling doll remaining just out of reach, Victoria’s frustrated screams rose to an even higher pitch and her contortions became so extreme she looked as if she was about to turn
herself inside out.
Her face was so devilish it didn't look like Victoria's. Her voice was so harsh and piercing it didn't sound like a child's.
“I said shut up. Don’t you understand plain English? Do you want to be caught near the river and get beaten? Shut up! Shut up!”
Charlotte gave Victoria a straight-armed shove that shot her small frame, arms flailing, backwards into the river.
The white dress ballooned out around the child before the swirling water turned her slowly and propelled her away from the bank into the swift current where the water was deepest. Shock
registered on her face. She re-emerged once downstream, her eyes and mouth wide open, her arms thrashing. Seconds later she disappeared from view, and Charlotte followed the course of the river
with such unblinking concentration that her eyes flicked in and out of focus.
It would have been so easy to give back the doll.
But you can’t give in to children like that. It turns them into spoilt brats
, Nurse Dixon’s voice scorched through her mind.
But Victoria is not a spoilt brat,
Charlotte shuddered to realise, holding the doll out to her little sister now, too late. Offering it to the empty space where the pretty darling had
stood a second earlier.
Charlotte felt a taste of vomit in her mouth. Her boiling temper had cooled in an instant as if it had been quenched by an upturned barrel of icy water.
“Come back, Victoria! Come back!” she called, with the doll dangling uselessly from her proffered hand. “I didn’t mean it!” Her leg muscles had turned soft but she
forced them to move, all the while repeating, “Come back, Victoria! Come back! Please, Victoria, come back! I don’t mind if you’re the favourite. You’re my favourite too.
You can have the doll. Look, I’m giving it to you!” She ran downstream past the bridge, hoping to see Victoria’s dress snagged on the branch of an overhanging tree, and Victoria
holding out her arms and crying out to her. What wouldn’t she give to be able to reach out and unhook the dress and pull her to safety? What wouldn’t she give to have her beside her on
the bank again?
She would give up her jealousy and her misery and promise to love her mother and Nurse Dixon and even give up riding Mandrake and never go back to the stables or see Manus again if only Victoria
wasn’t drowned. She would join in admiring her pretty face and wouldn’t be relieved if Nurse Dixon was being cruel to her rather than to herself.
Perhaps below the weir where she’d often watched a ball or a tin can dance on the churning water, trying to guess how long it would stay there before being swept along, she would find
Victoria wedged at the bottom of the fall, held by opposing forces.
With the large volume of water passing over the weir there was no fall of water. Only a bulge and then a straight run.
To gain height she stood on the bridge and looked as far downstream as possible. All she saw was brown water and flickers of white that gave her hope for the second before she realised they
weren’t Victoria’s dress but froth created by the tumult of the flood. Upstream was the deep Dark Waterhole that swallowed up young children, according to Nurse Dixon. Perhaps Victoria
was lying on the bottom of it, held down by strange creatures always on the lookout for naughty children who didn’t do what their nannies told them.
Consumed by a terror of being discovered by her mother and Manus, who might by now have realised that Victoria was missing, she staggered along the path by the river, bent over so she would be
hidden by the vegetation, until she was out of sight of any of the estate buildings, before circling back to the rear of the Park. Knowing Nurse Dixon was in the nursery, she went only as far as
the ground floor where she stuffed the doll under the stairs – she would retrieve it later and hide it in a better place – and then went outside again where her energy deserted her and
she fell beside a channel that drained water from the house where for weeks she had been building a bridge. While her mind filled with a silent, long drawn-out scream she rearranged the stones she
had collected for her construction and it was there some time later Nurse Dixon had found her sitting in mud to tell her Victoria was missing and everyone was needed for the search party, including
her, though God knew why, seeing she was so useless.
Iseult kept Mary Anne with her until Charlotte had recovered sufficiently to take her back. Mary Anne had been happy enough during the day, but cried for her mother at
night.
“Please don’t tell Lochlann about this little episode,” Charlotte begged her sister-in-law. “It will only worry him and besides it was nothing. I think I’ve been
overdoing things and not getting enough sleep. I’m fully recovered now.”
Dr Grace, visiting at the time, murmured sympathetically as if she believed her, but secretly worried about the state of Charlotte’s nerves and wondered if she suffered from a deep-seated
condition that could erupt at any time. Iseult feared that Charlotte had inherited a family madness that might be passed on to the child. One had only to remember that she had locked herself away
for three years and eaten herself into the size of a barn to realise she might be a bit unbalanced. Neither woman confided her fears to the other, but both determined to keep a closer eye on the
unfortunate woman whom they had grown to love and admire.
During the next few weeks both noticed that Charlotte didn’t recover her confidence and joy in the handling of Mary Anne. She was sad and tentative and prone to lapses of concentration,
sinking into deep thought at intervals, oblivious of her surroundings.
Mary Anne became clingy, registering unease if Charlotte moved even a short distance away from her side.
Charlotte wrote to Colonel Turncastle to say she had given a lot of thought to what he had said, especially the part about securing the future for all children, and was
applying to join the SOE as soon as possible.
Sydney
1943
It was half past five in the morning and the heat was already unbearable.
“Elizabeth.”
The whispered name woke Dixon from a deep sleep. The room was in darkness.
She was slow to react, having lain awake for hours the previous night, and many nights before that, trying to make sense of the explosive information Teresa had unwittingly given her. She was
consumed with planning who to write to first, what to say or hint at, and how best she might revenge herself on those at Tyringham Park who had wronged her, especially the little tell-tale,
Charlotte.
“Elizabeth!” A little louder this time, accompanied by tapping.
Lady Blackshaw would be first – that was only fair – she had already written a letter to her at Tyringham Park and would post it later in the day. Charlotte, Miss East, Manus and Dr
Finn would have to wait until she heard back from Her Ladyship.
“
Elizabeth!
” said for the third time, loudly and impatiently, finally drew Dixon from her bed.
It was Jim Rossiter’s voice. Mrs Sinclair must have died and he had come around to tell her and to bring her back to the house to include her in the funeral rituals. Thoughtful as
ever.
She pulled her dressing gown around her, clutching it at her neck with one hand while she opened the door with the other. Her face was already fixed in an expression of sympathy – Jim was
exceptionally fond of his mother-in-law, and she of him.
“Is it Mrs Sinclair?”
Jim pushed past her, flicked on the light switch and closed the door behind him.
“No. It’s not her. She’s still hanging on. It’s you. What I want to know is what have you done with the bloody money?”
Afterwards, Dixon couldn’t remember in what order Jim had made his accusations, but “robbing me blind for years” was the phrase he kept repeating.
“Pack your bags. You’ll never see this place or Norma or her mother again. I’m making sure of that.”
Dixon felt as if she wasn’t standing in the middle of her bedroom, bare feet firm on the carpet, but falling backwards out of an open window, her fingers losing their grip on the slippery
frames while a freezing wind snapped at the shroud-like curtains. She experienced a flashback to the time Miss East and Dr Finn came to the nursery together and she knew by the look on their faces
that her time was up.
Jim upturned her mattress and emptied the contents of her wardrobe on to the floor. He accompanied her to the bathroom and waited outside while she washed and dressed. At one point while he was
questioning her he came near and she put up an arm to defend herself from an expected blow, but he said he had never hit a woman in his life and wasn’t about to start now. He held her
shoulders, looked into her face and said in a reasonable voice that it would save him a lot of trouble if she would tell him where the money was. The physical contact comforted her and she
didn’t pull away. With hands like those steadying her she would never have to fear falling backwards through an open window.