‘They had obligations and had taken vows,’ said Miss Mead gently.
‘But do vows have to bind forever?’ asked Letty. ‘What if one finds that one has made a mistake, a dreadful mistake?’
‘The Church says one has to stay. Even the most brutal husband must be obeyed, they say.’
Miss Mead turned a heel on the small fluffy bootee she was knitting and Letty said in a fierce whisper, ‘I know what the Church says. What do you say?’
‘I say, leave him if you can, my dear,’ said Miss Mead unexpectedly.
This caught Miss Medenham’s attention also. She broke off her enumeration of her new cubist cutlery and said incredulously, ‘
‘I said that a brutal husband need not be endured.’ The skilled hands continued to knit, the thread looping exactly over the centre of the crossed needles. ‘Why, what is your opinion, Miss Medenham?’
‘I think the same. Can you leave him, Letty?’
‘I . . . don’t know.’ Mrs Luttrell was taken aback by being the centre of all this conversation. Even Joan Fletcher had ceased berating her daughter to listen. ‘I think he’d kill me if I tried.’
‘Oh, come now, Letty, you’re exaggerating,’ scoffed Cynthia. Letty, for answer, pulled back the loose sleeves of her pale-blue woollen gown. The delicate wrists and thin forearms were marked across with black bruises. Phryne felt ill.
‘God, Letty, how long has he been doing that?’
‘He was kind when he wanted me to marry him,’ said Letty quietly. ‘He bought me violets, I remember. I’ve never been able to bear the scent of violets since. My boy was killed, you see, and I had nothing to live for and my mother has three daughters and he has a lot of money. Once we were married he changed. He’s jealous. If I talk to a man, he questions me for hours, accuses me of all sorts of things.’
‘And he beats you,’ said Mrs Reynolds.
‘Yes,’ said Letty dismissively.
‘But now there’s another man,’ said Judith excitedly.
Mrs Luttrell shrank, blushing bright-red. Phryne restrained an urge to kick Miss Fletcher and said, ‘We didn’t mean to pry, Mrs Luttrell. Why don’t you and Miss Mead go over to the piano to continue your discussion and we’ll stay here. Would anyone like some more coffee?’ Letty caught at her arm.
‘No, no, it’s all right,’ she protested. ‘You see, I’ve got no one to talk to. He doesn’t like me to have friends. This is my only chance to talk. What should I do?’
‘Have you got any money of your own?’ asked Phryne. Letty shook her head. ‘What about your lover?’
Letty looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think there’s any money.’
‘It might be an idea to find out, if you are serious,’ said Miss Mead. ‘You haven’t any children, my dear – children make it difficult. But no one should stay and be tortured – the laws allow you to leave.’
Phryne knew that the laws might allow Mrs Luttrell to leave, but unless she intended passing the time between her departure and the decree absolute under medical supervision in a convent, the Major would declare to the Court that she was a loose woman and had deserted him without cause. Letty would find herself disgraced and out on the street without a sou or a sequin. However, even that might be better than being beaten and continually denigrated. Phryne was surprised to find that the browbeaten Mrs Luttrell had any spirit left at all.
‘I want to run away,’ said Letty plaintively. ‘Miss Fletcher is right, there is someone. It’s funny, really.’ Her lips curved in a smile so sad that Phryne had to take a sip of Cointreau to still the pang. ‘Will would never have brought me here if he had known.’
‘Known what?’ asked Miss Fletcher. Phryne moved into easy kicking distance of the young woman and resolved to apply her silver shoe without fear or favour at the very hint of another faux pas.
‘Why, that my own darling is here,’ said Mrs Luttrell. ‘The one I love is here, in this house.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Without confused burnings they affectionately
compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring
to continue their living unions.
AS IT was clearly impossible to ask Mrs Luttrell who her lover was – and Phryne caught Miss Fletcher a shrewd blow on her shin when the question was hovering on her lips – there was not much more to be said. The ladies drank their beverages, Miss Fisher confining herself to Cointreau, and they went in a body to the large parlour where a gramophone was playing and the gentlemen awaited them. They evidently had not lingered over their port.
There were several distractions to while away the long evening. The room was just big enough to dance in, provided the dancers did not attempt anything too athletic; Phryne remembered her dancing-master telling her that one needed six square yards in which to polka. There were the usual photograph albums, a scatter of the fashionable journals, and a very beautiful chess set, made of carved bone. The poet challenged the Doctor to a game. Miss Medenham walked boldly up to the Major and demanded a dance. Phryne wondered what on earth the combustible novelist thought she was doing, vamping a man who beat his wife. Then Lin Chung crossed her field of vision.
‘This is a foxtrot,’ he said. ‘May I have this dance?’ and Phryne floated into his embrace.
‘How is Tom?’ she asked.
‘Drunk but affable. He was spouting family secrets like a geyser, wasn’t he? Does he do this often?’
‘No, I’ve never seen him like that before. You dance very well.’
‘So do you.’ Phryne saw Miss Mead seated by Mrs Fletcher. They looked amiably on. Even Mrs Fletcher seemed to have forgiven Lin Chung for being Chinese and charming, as her daughter Judith danced past with Gerry Randall. Jack Lucas had persuaded Mrs Reynolds to dance with him. They matched steps very well.
‘You heard what he said,’ Phryne reminded Lin. ‘Tom said he had no objection to a love affair between you and me going on under his roof.’
‘Even so,’ said the smooth voice. ‘He was not himself. There are other distractions, Silver Lady. Gerald is evidently overcome by your charms.’
‘He’s very pretty,’ said Phryne consideringly. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Not too much, I beg.’ He broke step and then regained his rhythm.
‘Oh? And are you intending to seduce the bouncing Miss Fletcher?’ Lin laughed, unabashed. ‘She said to me . . . she thinks . . .’
‘Tell me.’
‘She is under the impression that all Chinese men lust after white women. I had to find a way to disabuse her of this idea, while not telling her that to a Chinese she has hair like straw, round eyes like a demon, such eyes moreover the colour of a blind person or a devil, and lumps in all the wrong places.’
‘Poor girl.’
‘No, no, I was very polite.’ He brought Phryne neatly round a corner. ‘But you, Phryne, you are altogether different. If I had to explain your appeal I would have to say . . . I don’t know what I would say. That you have the carriage of a Manchu Princess, the black hair and the neat head, the red mouth of a courtesan of the first rank, yet you have eyes like precious jade. Such eyes were never seen in China. That is what they would call you, the poets who came to make songs of your beauty. Green Jade, the Silver Lady. You are wearing your Shanghai ring.’
‘The dragon and the phoenix, yes.’
‘In Western philosophy they call it the alchemical marriage. The White Queen and the Red King. Their mating engenders the philosopher’s stone.’
‘The Major’s wife wants to leave him,’ said Phryne, changing the subject. If Lin Chung was to be coaxed out of his chastity, it would not be done by allowing him to enthuse endlessly about her beauty.
‘Indeed? I can understand that.’
‘She has a lover. Someone in this house. Can you hazard a guess?’
Lin considered the Doctor, the poet, Tom Reynolds, Gerald Randall and Jack Lucas, and shrugged fluidly.
