Oscar and Lucinda

little case.

It was then that she began her lifetime habit of acting against the dictates of the "best advice." The best advice would have had her still a governess, less than a governess, a target for the milky-white spew of the youngest Trevis. The best advice would have her leave the glassworks in Darling Harbour, and have her believe it quite impractical to remove them to so isolated a post as Boat Harbour. She said (many, many times): "I loved Boat Harbour. It was my home. How could I leave it?" She sold off the land in Darling Harbour and transported what she could, including glass

AO*

Oscar and Lucinda

blowers and their families, all of whom she persuaded, by dint of personal visits, gifts, bribes, bonuses, to make the dangerous sea journey north.

She did not love Boat Harbour at all. She loathed it. But now she was rich and she began a lifetime of paying back those who she felt had slighted her. And she would, in the careful, almost feudal structure she built to hold the hierarchy of offences, place this clergyman near the top of the triangle, the apex of which was occupied by Mrs Trevis.

There was no room in the little study. You sat crammed on a straightbacked chair and looked across the vicar's shoulder to the open-sided veranda where the crates of books his present circumstances made it impossible to unpack stood greying and gathering new watermarks each time the wind came from the south. Or you could, if you cricked your neck a little, look down the long thin block of land, past the vicar's Jersey cow picking what it could from the low winter grass, to where the black bones of the glass church stood, its panes mostly cracked or crazed, with long dried strands of dead water clinging to its roof.

This church belonged to Miriam, or so it had been determined in the court at Sydney. De

Miriam sat on the chair and smoothed her skirts. She placed her hands in her lap, quite so, not attempting to hide — De

"I have been speaking to Mr Field from Gleniffer," Miriam said, removing a black glove to reveal than an extra wedding ring had found its way on to her pretty hand in Sydney. "He says there are now fifteen Anglican families who would be pleased to fill a plate each Sunday." De

"And that is when it came to me," said Miriam, smiling sweetly, "that we might make a present of my dear little church to them. Mr Field says he has no shortage of corrugated iron, and as for the walls, he explained to me how he would fix weatherboards to it."

"How clever of him," said De

"Well," said Miriam, "indeed it is. You ca

A Cheque amidst Her Petticoat

board on to a cast-iron frame." — ;

"I never thought of it," said De

"Spare me your wit then, Mr Vicar, and if you are so wise in these worldly things, tell me how you would fix a weatherboard to the walls of the church."

De

"With fencing wire," Miriam said. "Like a stockyard fence. But if you are wise in these country matters, you will know how to do it. But, then again, you will not need to. The Gleniffer Anglicans will be here tomorrow. There has been so much trouble with white ant they are pleased to have a cast-iron frame. But, Mr Hasset, you look disappointed."

"As you know," he said, "I had rather hoped I would at last have a church here."

"Then we must get up a fête, and raise some money," Miriam said. "But you ca

"Still, I am disappointed."

"Your Sundays will certainly be very busy."

"I do not complain about God's work, but rather that the church was intended for me. But, but," he held his hand up as if to hold off her fury, "the courts said otherwise."

"Miss Leplastrier must have been most fond of you."

"We were friends, yes." i — '

"As she was obviously fond of my husband."

Husband? How is he husband? '

"She has been in correspondence with me again. I must say I admire

• her frankness." ' "v: :•:>; ••<'-.

"Oh?" '••••^Ji'<.-,A-,

"You are not aware of our correspondence? She does not keep you informed? And yet I understood from her when we met outside the court in Sydney that you had a detailed correspondence. Indeed, she knew so much about our little town."

"Come, Miriam, what has she said." He held out his hand to the letter that Miriam was unfolding.

"It is not gentlemanly to pry into the private correspondence of young ladies. But I will read you little pieces. She writes: 'I made a bet in order that I keep my beloved safe.' I take that ill, De

"She was fond of him?":s<,,

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Oscar and Lucinda

"She seems fond of almost everyone. But let me read some more: 'I beg you, please, as one woman to another, to not do this to me. I am astounded to see these words come off the tip of my own pen, but still they come. Let us not have our fears make us greedy.' Our fears, "said Miriam,

"make us greedy. Really, I can't think what she means. 'When I walk the streets of Sydney I realize I ca

"So," she said.

De

"So," he said, "and what do you reply?"

"I replied sympathetically, of course. How could I not be sympathetic, I who have spent half her life in mourning rags, as I am again. I have an intimate knowledge of the poor woman's situation. It is I, after all, who was brought to this town through ill-fortune, was shipwrecked, and although a governess have had to suffer the indignity of a life better suited to an Irish servant. I know, better than she knows, what her situation must mean to her."

"And your response?"

"I worked as a servant," Miriam repeated. "I set fires. I milked cows when I should be teaching them their Shakespeare and their Milton."

"And you would have her do the same.",-^ , t

: "De

; "Mrs Chadwick," he said. -,

"Hopkins," she corrected.

"Mrs Hopkins," he said, "let us not be enemies."

"Mr Hasset, you are in such a rush to be friends you are stamping on my feet. Have I not said I will donate my little church to your Gleniffer Anglicans?"