Dresses of Red and Gold Read online

  The contents of her basket were also a source of anxiety—a dozen currant scones wrapped in a tea-towel, a jar of home-made apricot jam and two cakes of carnation soap. Heather had chosen all those things with care, but wondered now about the soap. Perhaps the old lady would think it was a hint that she didn’t wash often enough—elderly people could be very touchy! In fact, she’d been stupid giving up a whole afternoon just to impress Mr Everett, and to add to her gloom, Isobel Dion came bouncing along the footpath towards the post office making an absolute public exhibition of herself! Other people, Heather thought furiously, all seemed to have ladylike cousins they could boast about, but she was stuck with that appalling Isobel, who always dashed about town in an eccentric maelstrom of colour. She looked particularly noticeable today, and Heather shrank back into the arched entrance of the post office.

  Isobel saw her, however, and shouted across the crowded pavement, ‘Heather, can I come up to your place…Hey, isn’t that Grace’s old jacket she made out of the scorched blanket you’ve got on? Dead clever, wasn’t she, the way she sewed fake pockets over the…’

  ‘Shut up, you drongo! When are you going to learn to keep your trumpety voice down?’ Heather hissed, in a quiver of embarrassment. ‘And you can’t come up to our place, either. I’m not going home, I’m on my way to visit someone over in East Wilgawa.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you knew anyone over that posh side of the river,’ Isobel said. ‘You can’t count Uncle Trip and Aunty Cessie, they’re not really East Wilgawa even though they like to let on they are. They’re miles down the slummy end near the old quarry, but wherever you’re going I’ll come along and keep you company…’

  ‘You will not! I’m calling on an old lady who used to come to our church, Miss Bradtke her name is, and she certainly wouldn’t want a skitey loudmouth like you barging into her house!’

  ‘I know someone used to cook for the Bradtkes or do their ironing or something. Old Miss Bradtke—she must be about eighty not out by now, and I heard she’s been one plank short, anyhow, ever since…’

  ‘People start to fail when they get old,’ Heather said reprovingly. ‘That’s no reason to talk about them with disrespect. I don’t mind in the least giving up an afternoon to visit a lonely old soul who can’t get out of the house much any more…’ She paused, thinking how thrilling it would have been if Mr Everett had strolled past at that very moment and overheard what she’d just said. He would have given her a special smile of approval, his lupin-coloured eyes crinkling up at the corners…

  ‘Well, I’m glad it’s you and not me,’ Isobel said. ‘What a lousy afternoon you’re in for—sipping tea and chatting about bunions. Can’t you get out of it somehow?’

  ‘Of course I can’t, she’s expecting me! The poor old thing’s probably been looking forward to it all week.’

  ‘More likely she’s so dippy she won’t even notice if you don’t turn up,’ Isobel scoffed, but Heather shot past her on to the East Wilgawa bus and took a seat on the far side so she wouldn’t even have to wave goodbye.

  She sat down carefully, keeping her pleated skirt in order, because she wanted to arrive looking a credit to the parish…a credit to Mr Everett. Maybe, she thought, as the bus rattled across the bridge and negotiated the hilly streets on the other side of the river, Mr Everett might choose this very afternoon to make his East Wilgawa parish rounds! Naturally she hadn’t picked today just because he did sometimes visit parishioners on Saturday afternoons, but what an amazing coincidence if he found her there at Miss Bradtke’s being solicitous and helpful! He might even mention something about it in his sermon tomorrow, how he’d been so impressed by her charitableness he was holding it up as a shining example to the whole congregation…

  The streets became unfamiliar, because she wasn’t often over this side of town, but she checked the little map Mrs Everett had drawn for her, getting off at the tennis courts as instructed. Despite the instructions (what uneducated handwriting Mrs Everett had, and how odd that Mr Everett had married someone so ghastly) the Bradtke house was difficult to find.

  It was tucked away in a side street where the houses didn’t even have numbers. Heather walked up the long drive, noticing how neglected everything was, even though the house looked impressive from the stately front gate. The garden had probably been lovely once, cascading in a series of terraces down to the river, but now all its winding pathways were nothing more than grassy troughs. She knocked at the front door, thinking that Miss Bradtke must feel ashamed to be living in such a rundown place, with most of the veranda tiles either cracked or missing altogether, and the brass doorknocker covered in verdigris. Perhaps that was why she was taking so long to answer, but when Miss Bradtke fumbled open the door at last, she saw that the slowness was due to extreme old age. She was a very ugly old lady, Heather thought, and just as decrepit as her surroundings in an ancient cardigan with all the buttons hanging by threads and slippers like collapsing sandcastles—but worst of all, she didn’t seem to know anything about the Home Visiting Scheme!

  ‘They said you’d be expecting me…’ Heather faltered, turning pink. ‘At church they asked for volunteers to…’

  ‘Ah, a donation,’ Miss Bradtke said graciously. ‘Is it for the font fund? They’re planning to bring a special rock from Palestine, you know, to use as a base.’

  ‘Er…they’ve already had that there for years,’ Heather said. ‘I mean…I was baptised in it. It’s not a donation, Miss Bradtke, I’ve just come to…to visit and help with any little jobs you might need doing. Dusting and cleaning windows, things like that. Mrs Everett said she’d been in touch with all the people on the list and you’re my…I mean I’ve been sent to…’

  ‘Visiting? How splendid—I hardly ever get any callers these days! Come in, dear, let me take your nice jacket and hang it up on the stand. If you’d like to go in there and sit by the fire—I have a little fire going, because I do feel the cold so badly after India, you know, I’ll make us a cup of tea. Through that door on the left…’

  ‘I’m supposed to…’ Heather said, but Miss Bradtke was already padding off down the hallway and it seemed presumptuous to follow her to the kitchen. Heather went through the door on the left and immediately regretted her offer to dust. Every surface in the room was velvety with it, and the knick-knacks arranged along the mantelpiece appeared to be linked by strands of cobweb. Her mother’s standard of housekeeping was such that missing items could remain lost for months, but this was unbelievable! She peered at something on a table that looked like a mossy rock, flicked at it with her handkerchief and discovered wax flowers under a glass dome. She flicked some more and the flowers gleamed as brightly as coral, but the disturbed dust had settled languidly on her shoes. Heather sat down by the fire, discouraged. There were so many objects and ornaments in the room, and probably that vague old lady didn’t even notice the state they were in or even care!

  Vague Miss Bradtke certainly was, for although the tray she brought in held a silver teapot as decorative as a crown, it produced hot water only, for she’d forgotten to add the tea. While she was remedying that, Heather set out the scones she’d brought, glad now she had, for the tray offered nothing more than very stale biscuits. Miss Bradtke ate neither, she was too excited about having a visitor. Like a child, Heather thought uncomfortably, trying to imagine Miss Bradtke as a child, or even a young girl, but finding it impossible. It was as though she had always looked as she did now, an angular old woman with white hair dragged back into a bun and long skinny legs encased in wrinkled stockings. The only youthful things about her were her eyes, which sparkled as though this ramshackle afternoon tea was some kind of party celebration.

  Heather, with fourteen years’ experience of being polite to elderly relatives, smiled and nodded dutifully through a rambling monologue about Wilgawa residents completely unknown to her. She suspected that they had all moved away or were now dead, but didn’t like to point that out to poor old Miss Bradtke. It wasn’t
going to be easy to stem that torrent of chatter and get on with the small jobs she’d come to do, but even dusting would be preferable to sitting here numbed by boredom. And cold—for in spite of the fire, chilliness felt entrenched in the large room, a permanent feature that might loiter there all year around, no matter what the season.

  Nothing about this visit had turned out as planned! She’d imagined a little artistic flower-arranging, perhaps sprinkling some cologne on a lace hanky for pitiful knotted hands that couldn’t manage the stopper of a scent bottle, dusting the top of a piano and then taking her leave in a glow of virtue. And Miss Bradtke would remark later to Mr Everett, ‘Oh, it was like a tonic when that lovely Heather Melling girl came to visit me! Such a charming, sensitive girl…’ But instead she’d be ensnared here for hours, listening to a flow of persistent starved prattle. She began to feel depressed, wondering if perhaps she’d end her days like that, find that the years had all fled and she’d become a dithery old lady, trapped by age and infirmity, with not a soul to talk to.

  ‘No, Miss Bradtke, I’m afraid I don’t remember when the Cleeses lived in Alma Road. I’ve never really known anyone of that name,’ she said politely, and turned her bored attention to the ornaments on the table by her chair. She picked up an elephant paper-weight, but replaced it quickly, remembering that it was rude to touch other people’s belongings when you were a visitor in their house. Miss Bradtke could easily say to Mr Everett next time she saw him, ‘That girl the parish sent here had such bad manners. Heather Melling her name was, and she didn’t really listen when I was speaking, just fiddled about with the things on my little table!’ And Mr Everett would think she was dreadful and never smile at her again with his beautiful lupin eyes that crinkled up at the corners…

  ‘That elephant’s one of my souvenirs from India,’ Miss Bradtke said, apparently not annoyed at all. ‘You might like to see a few other things I saved from my time there. If you wouldn’t mind fetching that leather trunk from under the window-seat…’

  Heather didn’t mind, for India sounded vastly more exciting than ancient memories of Wilgawa. She even drew her chair closer to see better, braving a pungent smell of mothballs that erupted from the trunk, but discovered that the contents weren’t particularly interesting at all. They were just the same ordinary relics that all old people liked to keep—buckles, yellowing letters, hatpins, gloves. They didn’t even look foreign, she thought, feeling cheated, but Miss Bradtke’s eyes sparkled in the firelight as she brought out each item. To Heather’s embarrassment she even draped herself in a large silk shawl and swayed coquettishly about in her chair as though she were dancing. The shawl was patterned attractively with flamingoes worked in silk thread, but the mothballs hadn’t been effective, Heather noticed unkindly.

  ‘Oh—India!’ Miss Bradtke said. ‘It was utterly magnificent! I spent the happiest time of my life there. Enormous houseboats on the lake with mountains in the background, and the water so still, just like a huge mirror! In the mornings the little boats would come out piled high with fresh flowers…those beautiful, beautiful flowers! And the splendid dances and balls, everyone arriving in open carriages with hundreds of little fairy lamps sparkling in the trees. You wouldn’t think so to look at me now, but I was quite the belle of the ball in those days, quite the toast of the regiment. Ah, here’s something—my little gold locket with the emerald! I used to wear it all the time then, it was a very special gift from someone…you can try it on if you like, dear.’

  Heather didn’t know a tactful way to decline.

  ‘Romantic—it was just so romantic, like living in an enchanted land! Father was always threatening to pack me back home on the next ship, because I was a giddy girl, you know, very wilful. I danced with a…rajah!’

  Heather sat very still, listening, the locket swinging forgotten on its chain.

  ‘My rajah with his dark eyes,’ Miss Bradtke said forlornly. ‘He asked me to marry him, but it wasn’t considered the correct thing, you see, not in those days. Oh, I cried and cried! My father sent me straight home to Australia when he found out.’

  ‘That’s awful!’ Heather whispered.

  ‘They never even let us say goodbye properly, it broke my heart. Oh, I cried for months and made myself quite ill! My poor white face in the glass, nothing but hollows and shadows…’

  ‘How mean!’ Heather cried. ‘They should have let you both…’

  ‘But at least I still have my little trinkets and memories,’ Miss Bradtke said. ‘No one can take those away.’

  Heather didn’t move, her mind pulsating with the romance of it. Poor tragic Miss Bradtke—who would have guessed there was someone living in Wilgawa who’d had something so absolutely fascinating happen in her life? Proposed to by a rajah…

  The mantel clock chimed, reminding her of how late it was, and that Miss Bradtke really looked very frail and tired, as though she should perhaps be having an afternoon nap instead of upsetting herself with sad memories of thwarted love. Heather stood up, offering to wash the teacups, but Miss Bradtke wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘Thank you, dear, but I never allow anyone else to wash that good china,’ she said. ‘I never dare—I’m always so afraid a piece might get accidentally broken. But it was so nice of you to call, and I’m sorry you have to go. You must have a little gift—something from India, of course, and because that locket looks so pretty on you…’

  ‘This locket? Oh no, I couldn’t possibly!’ Heather protested. ‘It’s one of your…your souvenirs, Miss Bradtke.’

  ‘I’d like you to have it, it’s meant to be worn by someone young, not tucked away in a dark old room. If you could see yourself out, I’d be grateful. I haven’t been very well lately, and that river breeze in the late afternoon is very cold to someone used to a warm climate.’

  Heather let herself out and became lost again on her way to the bus-stop, unable to take her eyes from the locket—a gift from the rajah! Miss Bradtke had practically come right out and said as much. She, Heather Melling of Sawmill Road, had actually met someone who’d had a love affair with a rajah, and was now walking home wearing gold and emeralds!

  Perhaps, she thought, discovering that she’d somehow wandered two blocks past the tennis court bus-stop, perhaps one day she’d travel to India herself! She could train as a nurse when she left school, go to India and help thousands of suffering people. She’d be a magnificent nurse—Captain had said at Guides that her First Aid reversed-spiral bandage was the best she’d ever seen! In India her fame would spread far and wide, she’d be summoned to meet the rajah of that area to receive a special medal…and he’d turn out to be the grandson of Miss Bradtke’s one! She’d be looking particularly attractive that day as she walked up to the throne of the handsome young rajah to receive her medal (because by then she’d surely have learned to manage her unruly mop of hair). She’d be wearing her locket, too, and the young rajah would suddenly say, ‘How truly remarkable! My grandfather once gave a locket like that to someone he adored, but remorseless fate intervened and she travelled away far over the sea. He died of a broken heart, but now this little locket has returned to its original country like a talisman…’

  The Wilgawa bus came and she boarded it in a dream, having to be asked twice for her fare by the driver. She wasn’t even conscious of the bumpy trip back across the bridge or of alighting, and when she found herself standing outside the post office without knowing how she’d got there, she decided to walk home instead of waiting for a connecting bus.

  When she went to India and met the rajah’s grandson, she wouldn’t have to walk anywhere at all. She’d be carried around everywhere in one of those palanquin things, and furthermore, he’d build an incredibly beautiful marble palace and call it the Taj Heather in her honour…

  ‘Heather! That’s the third time I yelled—you sleepwalking or drunk or something?’

  Wrenched from her vision of pearl walls gleaming in moonlight, she blinked with distaste at Isobel perched on someone’s lio
n gatepost in Slidemaster Street.

  ‘I’ve had a rotten afternoon mooching round with nothing to do, but not as boring as you, I bet,’ Isobel said.

  ‘I had a very interesting time at Miss Bradtke’s, if you must know. She told me all about her travels,’ Heather said over her shoulder, hurrying past and not waiting. She didn’t want Isobel’s company on the walk home, wishing only for solitude. Gold and emeralds, gift from a rajah, and when she got home she’d have to find something suitable to…

  ‘Travels? That Miss Bradtke’s never been anywhere in her whole life, poor old chook, she was born right here in Wilgawa and never ever left it. Nothing interesting’s ever happened to her, either…except there was something, this kind of scandal that happened once,’ Isobel said, trailing around the corner after her into Alma Road.

  Cathy had a nice glass box she’d won in a school lucky dip, Heather was thinking. Maybe she could be persuaded to swap it for something. That little box was lovely, with a spray of forget-me-nots painted on the lid, and was absolutely wasted on Cathy, who kept silkworms in it…

  ‘I know all about the Bradtkes,’ Isobel said, picking up a stick and rattling it along the paling fences. ‘Because Mrs Atkinson next door to us used to housekeep for them when old Mr Bradtke was still alive. And a proper nasty old coot he was, too! He had poor Miss Bradtke waiting on him hand and foot all his life and never let her go out anywhere. She was already an old maid in her twenties, Mrs Atkinson reckoned everyone said that, but to get back to this scandal I was telling you about…you know those hawkers used to come around in the old days selling dress material and brooches and buttons?’