We went into town this morning, our last free day before we start our shifts. How very exciting to take refreshments and watch as everyone walked by. The ritual of tea making is fascinating, and very exotic.
I brought you a tiny enamelled box to replace the one you lost, inlaid with mother of pearl from a street market which I will bring home with me. Just the thing to put your pills in for safe keeping. I know how you dislike taking them in public, dear Wilz.
I received a parcel from my handsome admirer today. A pair of silk stockings and a block of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate. Oh the taste of it, sublime. I indulged until I could take no more and shared the rest with the nurses in our tent. No point keeping it as the bugs get into everything and ruin it.
The stockings I have tucked in the bottom of my trunk for a special day although I doubt we will get an outing any time soon.
Any news of Papa?
P.S. Don’t forget the roses.
Your loving sister, Gertrude.
A shiver crept up her spine and she closed her eyes, trying to get a grip on the rising sense of panic. A hint of pipe smoke quivered near her nose and a wave of vertigo washed over her. She closed her eyes.
* * *
“Wilhelmina? What are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be out on the estate collecting the rents?”
Jolted by the aggressive tone she held her breath. A well-dressed man in his late fifties or early sixties stood at the open door connecting the sitting room to a man’s bedroom. A dark timber bed covered with a sage green bedspread took the centre of the room behind him, dominating the space. A sense of deja vu hit her so fast she could taste the bitterness seeping from the man staring down at her with a sneer on his face. She knew this place, this time. Why or how evaded her. She would find out sooner or later. The paper slipped from her hand to land soundlessly on the floor.
“What’s wrong with you, girl? Get a hold of yourself and tell me why you’re here snooping into my things when you should be out working.” He gripped the pipe between his teeth, shut the double doors and strode toward her, his gaze disdainful. When he brushed past her, she caught a whiff of pine and soap, sparking a waft of a memory she couldn’t quite grasp hold of. “On your way out, tell Hughes I’m ready for tea. And don’t let anyone cheat you out of rent today. Not like the last time you got sucked in by those bleeding heart stories.” He stood in front of the fire warming his hands over the roaring flames where moments ago Billie had seen dust and dead coals. “Not running a damned charity, regardless of what you might think. This estate is a business, a business that I still have control over no matter what you and that lazy nephew of mine have decided.” He turned to her, his hands clasped behind his back. “Well don’t stand there staring at me, girl. Go and do your job. You wanted it enough to dog my every footstep until you got it. Go and deal with it.”
The suppressed anger on his face made her take two steps back.
He raised his hand dismissively. “Get out!”
Billie scurried to the door, thankful it opened easier than the last time. She slammed it behind her, leaning against it as her nerves ricocheted through her body, sucking the mobility from her legs. Giving into a sudden sense of exhaustion, she slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to understand her predicament.
Billie rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes, breathing through her mouth, counting in her mind to keep the panic at bay. Too scared to open her eyes and face what had happened, she stayed like that until her legs cramped up and she was forced to move and get the blood circulating.
When she opened her eyes, the dust and the decay greeted her. She’d imagined what had happened, a hallucination. Once more she’d lost her grip on reality, the present fading away leaving her confused and anxious. Billie couldn’t go on like this. She was losing her marbles, slowly but surely. She rested her head back against the door and sat, trying to make sense of the tricks her fragile mind was playing.
By the time she checked her watch, only fifteen minutes had passed since she’d stepped inside the house. Her blood sugar had to be dipping the way her head felt. The salad roll and apple in her car were probably warm and unappetizing by now, but unless she was prepared for the drive back to Singleton, there was no other option except but to eat them.
If nothing else, she had to keep up her energy if not her sanity, because she had no control over that. The body could carry on so long as it had the fuel to do so whereas the mind was a totally different story. One could take care of it, rest it, stimulate it and it could still turn on you with the least provocation. Isn’t that what was happening to her now? Hadn’t it been the reason she’d dragged her poor child halfway across the damned world away from the few remaining friends they had and everything he’d known because her mind wouldn’t let her live a normal life?
Maybe Lucy was right, it was a bad idea to come here. She should have listened and not pushed so hard. Stuck to doing stories on horses and gardens, women’s country meetings or the polo. Anything but this house and the mysteries it held. Her need to dig and discover lost secrets was going to come back and bite her.
But something drew her to it, regardless of the
