The Ladies of Missalonghi

“You must feel like a king down there.”

“I do, Miss Wright.” And he smiled at her, tipped his battered bushman’s hat, turned and walked away.

Missy floated the rest of the way home, in perfect time to milk the cow. Neither Drusilla nor Octavia made reference to her bush walk, Drusilla because she had been more pleased at the display of independence than worried about the outcome, and Octavia because she had convinced herself Missy’s cerebral processes were being affected by whatever ailed her.

In fact, when by four o’clock there had been no sign of Missy, the two ladies left at Missalonghi had had a small tiff. Octavia thought it was time to inform the police.

“No, no, no!” said Drusilla, quite violently.

“But we must, Drusilla. Her brain’s affected, I know it is. When in her whole life has she ever behaved this way?”

“I have been thinking ever since Missy had her turn, sister, and I’m not ashamed to say that when Mr. Smith carried her in, I was terrified. The thought of losing her to such an unfair, unjust thing – I was never more glad than when Uncle Neville told me he didn’t think it was serious. And then I began to wonder what would happen to Missy had it been me? Octavia, we must encourage Missy to be independent of us! It is not her fault that God did not endow her with Alicia’s looks, or my strength of character. And I began to see that a whole lifetime’s exposure to my strength of character has not been good for Missy. I make the decisions about everything, and it is her nature to acquiesce without a fuss. So for far too long I have gone on making her decisions. I shall do so no longer.”

“Rubbish!” snapped Octavia. “The girl’s got no sense! Shoes instead of boots! Romances! Bush walks! It is my opinion that you must be more severe in future, not less.”

Drusilla sighed. “When we were young women, Octavia, we wore shoes. Father was a very warm man, we lacked for nothing. We rode in carriages, we had plenty of pin-money. And ever since those days, no matter how hard life has been, at least you and I are able to look back and remember the pleasure of pretty shoes, pretty dresses, coming-out parties, gaiety. Where Missy has never worn a pair of pretty shoes, or a pretty dress. I’m not castigating myself for that, for it isn’t my fault, but when I thought she might be going to die – well, I decided I was going to give her whatever she wanted, so long as I could afford it. Shoes I ca

“Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! You must go on as you have in the past. Missy needs strong direction.”

And from that viewpoint Drusilla could not budge her.

Unaware of her mother’s soul-searching, Missy decided she had better not read one of the new novels after di

“Aunt Octavia,” she said, fingers flying, “how much lace do you plan to set into your new dress? Is this going to be enough, do you think? I can easily make you a lot more, but I’ll need to know now.”

Octavia held out her knobby hand and Missy deposited the bunched-up lace in it, leaving her aunt to spread out each piece on her lap.

“Oh, Missy, it is beautiful!” breathed Octavia, awed. “Drusilla, do look!”

Drusilla plucked a scrap out of her sister’s lap and held it up to the weak light. “Yes, it is beautiful. You’re improving all the time, Missy, I must say.”

“Ah,” said Missy gravely, “that is because I have finally learned to unknit the sleeve of ravelled care.”

Both older ladies looked utterly blank for a moment, then Octavia cast a significant glance at Drusilla and ever so slightly shook her head. But Drusilla ignored her.

“Quite so,” she said majestically.

Cutting a dash at Alicia’s wedding won out; Octavia put Missy’s brainstorm aside. “Is it enough lace, Drusilla?” she asked anxiously.

“Well, for what I had originally pla

Now Missy looked blank; in all her life her mother had never deferred to her before, nor stopped to think whether what she asked was excessive. Of course! It was the heart trouble! How amazing! “I don’t mind in the least,” she said quickly.

Octavia beamed. “Oh, thank you!” Her face puckered. “If only I might help you with the sewing, Drusilla. It’s so much work for you.”

Drusilla looked at the heap of lilac crêpe in her lap and sighed. “Don’t worry, Octavia. Missy does all the fiddly bits like buttonholes and hems and plackets. But I do admit it would be wonderful to have a Singer sewing machine.”

That of course was out of the question; the ladies of Missalonghi made their clothes the old-fashioned hard way, every inch of every seam sewn by hand. Drusilla did the main sewing and the cutting, Missy the fiddly bits; Octavia could not manage to hold an instrument so fine as a sewing needle.

“I am so very sorry your dress has to be brown, Missy,” said Drusilla, and looked at her daughter pleadingly. “But it is lovely material, and it will make up very well, you wait and see. Would you like some beads on it?”

“And spoil the cut? Mother, you cut superbly, and the cut will carry it without any adornments,” said Missy.

That night in bed Missy lay in the darkness and remembered the details of the loveliest afternoon of her entire life. For not only had he said hello to her, he had climbed down from his cart and actually chosen to walk along with her, chatting to her as if she was a friend rather than a mere member of that tiresome gang called Hurlingford. How nice he had looked. Homespun, but nice. And he smelled not of stale sweat, like so many of the oh-so-respectable Hurlingford men, but of sweet expensive soap; she had recognised it immediately because whenever the ladies of Missalonghi received rare gifts of such soap, it was not consumed upon their bodies (Sunlight was quite good enough for that!), but inserted between the folds of their clothes as they lay in drawers. And his hands might be toil-roughened, but they were clean, even beneath the nails. His hair too was immaculate; no trace of pomade or oil, just the healthy gloss one saw on the fur of a freshly licked cat. A prideful and scrupulous man, John Smith.

Best of all she liked his eyes, such a translucent golden brown, and so laughing. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t believe any of the tales hinting at dishonesty or baseness. Instead, she would have staked her life upon his intrinsic integrity and fiercely defended ethics. She could see such a man doing murder, perhaps, if goaded beyond endurance, but she could not see him stealing or cheating.

Oh, John Smith, I do love you! And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for coming back to Missalonghi to see how I did.

With only a month left until her wedding, Alicia Marshall came day by day closer to the most perfect manifestation of her long and glorious blossoming, and she meant to enjoy even that final frantic month to the top of her bent. The date had been set eighteen months previously, and it had never occurred to her to doubt the season or the weather. Sure enough, though occasionally springs on the Blue Mountains might be late, or wet, or unduly windy, this one, obedient to Alicia’s whim, was coming in with the halcyon dreaminess of Eden.

“It wouldn’t dare do otherwise,” said Aurelia to Drusilla, a nuance in her tone suggesting that just once Alicia’s mother might enjoy Alicia’s plans going awry.

Missy’s Sydney appointment had been set up, but a week later than had been hoped; which was lucky for Missy, because on the Tuesday that Dr. Hurlingford had pla