The Three Miss Allens, page 9
They sank to the floor, leaning their backs against the wall, staring at the names of the two women they’d never met; the two women who were sisters, who linked them right there and then, by blood, more than eighty years later.
‘Did you know they stayed here back then?’ Addy asked.
‘I know that Charles and Henrietta started the tradition of summer holidays down here at Remarkable Bay. They were quite well to do, apparently, and they could afford to come down to the south coast to escape the city summers. But I had no idea they stayed here at Bayview.’ Roma felt a swell of sadness battle with her excitement at the discovery. ‘My mum and dad would have loved this.’
‘It’s amazing it survived intact.’
‘The handwriting is incredible,’ Roma said. ‘So neat. Considering they would have used those old-fashioned nibs and ink bottles.’
‘That means no emojis, right?’
Roma poked Addy in the ribs and they laughed heartily while she continued down the list. ‘“Mr and Mrs Frank Whitelock and family”.’
Addy laughed and pronounced theatrically, ‘“Miss Gertrude and Miss Wilhelmina Smythe”. Gertie and Willie. Spinsters, obviously. With names like that I’m not surprised. Poor things.’
‘There were a lot of them after the First World War,’ Roma added soberly. ‘Spinsters, I mean. And widows.’
‘Oh god. Of course there were.’ Addy stilled. ‘Wait a minute, Roma. Look at this. There’s another Allen here.’
They peered closer, trying to read the smudged last name crammed at the very bottom of the page.
‘Miss Celia Allen?’ Addy tried to decipher the scrappy handwriting.
‘No, it’s not Celia. It’s Clara. Miss Clara Allen,’ Roma said slowly. The handwriting looked rushed, cramped at the margin, and the ink of the name ‘Clara’ had faded before there was a scratch and then a dark splodge where the surname had been dashed off. Whoever had written it had done so in a rush.
‘This is so strange.’ Roma was confused. ‘Miss Clara Allen. And on the same page right here as Ruby and Adeline. I’ve only ever heard of the two Allen sisters. Your great-grandmother and mine. Ruby and Adeline.’
Addy looked over at Roma with wide eyes. ‘Then who the hell is Clara Allen?’
CHAPTER
9
Remarkable Bay, 1934
Miss Ruby Allen, the eldest of the three Miss Allens of North Adelaide, stopped abruptly at the front gate of the beachside guesthouse in Remarkable Bay, her mother in front of her and her two sisters behind. At one end of the street the ocean beckoned, sparkling blue. In front, in the near distance, was the bay, its protected position making it the perfect place for bathing and walking and enjoying the fresh air. Today, the wind came along with the bright sunshine and Ruby slapped a hand to the top of her head to keep her delicate straw hat firmly in place. The last thing she wanted was for it to be picked up by the ocean breeze and swept out to sea. She’d bought it especially for this holiday and had guarded it carefully on her lap during the four-hour train journey and then the comparatively short half-hour taxi trip to the grandest guesthouse on all of Ocean Street.
‘Welcome back to Bayview!’ Bayview’s proprietress, Mrs Nightingale, greeted them at the gate with a proud and friendly smile.
‘Why, Mrs Nightingale,’ Mrs Allen answered. ‘We are delighted to be back for the summer once again.’
‘And, as always, we’re honoured to have you.’ Mrs Nightingale, wiped her hands on the crisp white apron tied around her waist. Her ruddy cheeks and grey bun were so familiar to Ruby. Every year, the woman looked a little older, a little greyer, a little rounder. But her smile and her warm greeting hadn’t aged at all.
‘Hello, Mrs Nightingale.’
‘Miss Ruby,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at you.’ She turned to Mrs Allen when she spoke. ‘I see you have all your daughters with you once again?’
Ruby tried not to frown. She was fully aware of the subtext of the question. Yes, we are all here, she wanted to declare. Not one of us is yet married, although it wouldn’t be long.
‘Yes, all the girls are with me. We’re all in need of some sea air. It’s been so dreadfully hot up in Adelaide these past weeks.’
‘Will Mr Allen be joining you this year?’
‘Just after New Year’s, as a matter of fact. Girls, hurry please and come in from the sun.’
Ruby glanced behind her. Her younger sister, Adeline, was proudly smoothing the skirt of her new summer travelling suit. Behind her was Clara, the youngest Miss Allen, who stood a way back with her head bowed. Ruby wasn’t sure why she’d imagined her sisters would get on any better here in Remarkable Bay on holidays than they did at home in Adelaide, but she was disappointed their differing temperaments were already so obviously on display. Four weeks by the seaside always seemed like a wonderful idea when they were up in Adelaide and the summer heat was already blazing by early December. The thought of escaping the city for a sojourn on the south coast, where it was cooler by a few degrees and where the zephyr blew in throughout the afternoon and cooled everyone and everything, always made Ruby happy.
But now, standing on the street in the heat, with the wind trying to peel her straw hat from her head, she believed she might come to regret her initial enthusiasm. At least in Adelaide, back in their elegant city home on Buxton Street, Roma could escape to her own room and her own peace. Here, she would be sharing with Adeline and Clara, and would therefore be a witness to their personality conflicts. It was a familiar routine: Adeline would taunt and Clara would bite back. In her head, she was already hatching a plan to slip off on her own, to feel the sand between her toes, to find her solitude. Silence, Ruby Allen had discovered, was a rare commodity with two younger sisters.
‘When can we go bathing?’ Adeline called out from behind Ruby. She’d turned to look across Ocean Street, past the croquet lawns and the neatly manicured hedge, to the curve of the bay in the distance. ‘I can’t wait to try out my new swimsuit. I’m sure it will cause a scandal,’ she teased.
‘You know Father won’t let you wear it,’ Ruby added wearily. She’d been hearing about the swimsuit all the way from Adelaide. The whole train journey had been filled with nothing but fashion and romance. Adeline had persuaded their mother to buy similar suits for all her daughters earlier that year, at the very fancy John Martin store on Rundle Street in Adelaide, but Ruby had been nervous about them ever since. Last summer, they’d all worn knitted, navy blue costumes, the kind that sagged and bagged when wet, but which provided respectable coverage from neck to knee. Their new swimming costumes were a generation on in just twelve months: backless bodices with matching shorts, barely disguised by an overskirt. Adeline had seen them in the new magazine, the Women’s Weekly, and had been immediately taken with how modern—and how Hollywood—they looked.
‘You’ll get a tan,’ Clara added in a quiet voice.
‘Oh, phooey,’ Adeline said to the street.
‘And even worse than a tan, you’ll get freckles,’ Ruby added.
‘More than I already have?’ Adeline tugged off her hat. She tossed her red curls over her shoulder and poked out her tongue at her youngest sister. Clara looked away. It was a familiar dynamic: at twenty-two Ruby was respectful and obedient, the perfect eldest sister. Adeline was flamboyant and audacious, always on the look-out for attention; and Clara, dearest Clara, would rather read a book than talk to anyone. It was going to be a long and trying summer.
‘Girls!’ Their mother called insistently and the Allen girls fell into line.
‘Feel that cooling breeze,’ Mrs Nightingale announced as they entered the Bayview Guest House. ‘Isn’t it refreshing? It will do you the world of good to take it in during your stay.’ She inhaled enthusiastically and ushered them inside.
The sisters waited while their mother chatted politely with Mrs Nightingale, who fussed over a drawer at the reception counter before pulling out a set of keys.
‘You never know what might happen this summer,’ Adeline whispered to Clara. ‘You might even find a husband.’
Ruby looked over her shoulder. Clara was blushing furiously. Her gaze dropped to her T-bar shoes.
‘Adeline. For goodness sake, stop teasing. Clara is only just eighteen. She’ll have plenty of time to think of that.’
Adeline huffed at Ruby and looked away.
‘Here you are, Mrs Allen. I trust you’ll enjoy your stay. All the usual activities are on offer this year. There are services on Sundays, of course, and we’ve been blessed with a new minister at St Andrew’s. I believe he’s organising picnics for the young people on Saturdays at Inman Valley. And then we have our annual tennis and croquet tournaments against the guests of the Sunnybrae Guest House. You’d better get practising, girls! We are delighted to have a new tearoom, the Orange Grove, further down Ocean Street, right between the chemist shop and the salon.’ Mrs Nightingale clapped her hands together and almost bounced on the spot. When her grey bun had settled back into place on top of her head, she looked at the girls in turn. ‘And of course, there’s bathing.’
Adeline’s ears pricked up. ‘Tell me, Mrs Nightingale, are the men swimming topless down here this year? We’ve seen it in the magazines. It’s all the rage in the south of France, you know.’
A silence fell on the party. Mrs Allen glared at Adeline.
Mrs Nightingale’s lips pinched together in disgust. ‘I’m sorry to say they are. So shameless. I can’t think of anything more horrid than a man’s hairy chest.’ She shook the thought away. ‘I hope the Miss Allens aren’t exposed to any such thing during your stay. Come now, but before you go up to your rooms, would you care to sign the guest book? We’ve a new one this year and we’d be honoured if you would record your arrival.’
‘Why, certainly,’ Mrs Allen responded proudly and walked to the small polished wooden table in the hallway. She picked up a pen, dipped it in the crystal inkwell positioned next to the book and wrote with a flourish, Mr and Mrs Charles Allen.
‘Come, girls,’ she turned and beckoned to her daughters, ‘I believe you’re old enough to sign your own names this year.’ Ruby and Adeline followed their mother and wrote their own names underneath, but Clara had been pushed aside by a bustling Mrs Nightingale, who’d spotted some arriving guests.
‘Oh,’ she cried. ‘Mr and Mrs Whitelock. How delighted we are to have you back at Bayview. I hope 1934 has been kind to you.’
As the Whitelocks chatted amiably with Mrs Nightingale, she was distracted again by the arrival of two older women dressed head to toe in black. Ruby beckoned to Clara, who was trying to hurry past her sisters.
Ruby reached for Clara’s arm and held her back. ‘The guest book. You didn’t sign it.’
Clara looked up at Ruby, her brown eyes flat, her normally rosy cheeks pale. ‘It’s just a silly book.’
‘Please, Clara. Sign your name there so we’re all together.’ Ruby came close to whisper in her sister’s ear. ‘This might be the last summer.’
Clara understood her sister’s meaning and nodded. She waited for other guests to finish writing their names and then picked up the pen and started. The nib scratched on the page. It had run out of ink. She hurriedly jabbed the pen into the inkwell and finished her name with a scribble.
‘There. Happy?’
Ruby looked down. She was terribly disappointed that the Whitelocks and the Smythes had slipped in before Clara’s name appeared. On this page, she would forever be separated from her youngest, most sensitive sister. She felt a pang of regret, of sadness about that, that their last summer would be recorded this way.
She made a point of looking closely at the page. ‘Five out of ten for penmanship, Miss Allen.’ Clara managed a thin smile before turning and heading down the hallway to the stairs.
Ruby took one last look at the guest book and her name written there, the ink still wet and shining. As insufferable as this summer would be, she thought about the fact that it may well be the last time she signed her name here as a Miss Allen.
She had four weeks to agree to marry Edwin Stuart.
Within the hour, every suitcase and bag belonging to the women of the Allen family had been unloaded from the taxi, carried up the stairs by the young local boy wearing a flat cap who worked for Mrs Nightingale, and deposited into the two rooms they’d booked for their summer. The girls’ room was plain and simple, with three single beds, each with stiff white sheets and pale blue woollen blankets, and a dressing table of dark wood with a hinged mirror atop it. It held a porcelain wash bowl and a jug filled with fresh water, which they used to freshen up as they changed out of their travelling clothes into something more suitable for the holiday climate. There was one wardrobe to share between them, and they’d battled over hanging space for their day dresses, their summer suits, their evening gowns and their sportswear. Adeline had already tried on her new swimsuit, a racy emerald green to match her eyes, and had paraded around the room as if she were on the Cote d’Azur with Fred Astaire on her arm. Ruby had laughed at Adeline’s antics. Clara had sunk her nose further into her book. Ruby wasn’t so sure about her own swimsuit, in a slightly more demure navy polka dot pattern with thin white straps and white piping, so it remained in her suitcase.
After the excitement of the unpacking and the fashion parade had passed, Ruby found herself alone in their room. Her parents always took the grandest room upstairs, the huge room with double doors that opened out to the balcony, which they would have for their exclusive use during their stay. The sisters’ room was next to that. Its tall sash window looked out over the yard of the neighbour’s house, a low, flat stone cottage with a shining silver roof. The window was positioned perfectly to capture the sea breezes so the room would cool down at night. As the eldest sister, Ruby had the authority to claim the bed in the best position, the one right under the window, and was resting on it with her beloved copy of Jane Eyre when Adeline burst back into the room and flopped on her bed.
‘Mrs Nightingale says afternoon tea will be at four. I’m famished. She does the best sponge cake this side of Adelaide and I’m simply bursting for a piece. Aren’t you, Ruby?’
‘I’d quite like a cup of tea.’ Ruby lifted her gaze from the pages. ‘I’ll have to change first. Have you seen Clara?’
‘Oh, I don’t know where she is. She ran off somewhere almost as soon as we arrived. She’s such a bore lately.’ Adeline threw open the wardrobe door and pulled out a different dress, held it against her lithe frame. ‘What do you think of this dress, Ruby?’
Afternoon tea was an elaborate spread in Bayview’s front reception room. The large windows, topped and tailed by squares of dusky rose stained glass, overlooked the croquet lawn and, in the distance, the sparkling and restorative waters of Remarkable Bay. Mrs Allen, Adeline and Ruby had changed out of their travelling clothes into more formal dresses; their mother had thrown a spotted scarf around her neck with her cameo sitting neatly below the smallest bit of décolletage on show, and she held her short white gloves. Stockings and T-bar sandals completed her seaside elegance. Ruby felt much more modern: she and Adeline had chosen cotton dresses with short sleeves, modest collars and cinched-in waists. They wore sun hats like their mother but had left their gloves in their room. It was a small decadence but it was summer after all. Ruby glanced at Adeline. Her neckline was a little lower than Ruby’s, her cheeks a little more rouged and her hat just the slightest bit more decorative. She was allowed these flamboyances because she was engaged.
When they appeared at the doorway to the reception room, Mrs Nightingale fluttered over, tapping her fingertips together.
‘Good afternoon, ladies. I’ve saved our best table for you. If you would follow me.’
Each table was covered with a white linen tablecloth and silver flatware gleamed in the light. Mrs Nightingale directed them to a table surrounded by elegant high-backed chairs right in front of the window. Ruby waited for her mother to sit, and then pulled out a chair opposite her. Adeline chose the seat with the best view of the street—or rather, the best seat from which to be seen—and immediately pulled a silver compact from her clutch purse and checked her lipstick.
Mrs Nightingale stood solicitously at Mrs Allen’s side and waited while she and her daughters settled.
‘We’re not seeing Miss Clara for tea this afternoon?’ Mrs Nightingale looked at each of them in turn.
Ruby glanced at the empty chair and when she saw Adeline’s red lips part with words on the edge of them, she blurted, ‘A headache, I’m afraid.’
‘Poor Miss Clara,’ Mrs Nightingale tutted. ‘To have journeyed all this way and be ill. Never mind. There will be more days and evenings’ entertainment for her, no doubt. Now, shall I bring you a selection of today’s offerings? We have sponge cake, Banbury cakes, Bakewell tarts and some delicious shortbread, made with butter delivered daily from the local farms. Everything is fresh as a daisy and made right here at Bayview.’
‘That all sounds delicious,’ Ruby said politely. Mrs Nightingale prided herself on her good table. ‘Thank you, Mrs Nightingale.’
Adeline was sitting straight-backed in her chair, clutching her purse in her lap, staring out the window, when Ruby kicked her under the table. Adeline glared at her before finding her manners. ‘Why thank you, Mrs Nightingale. You do make the best tea on the south coast. Oh, and Mrs Nightingale?’
‘Yes, Adeline?’
‘Would you happen to have the latest edition of The Advertiser?’
‘Since when do you read the paper?’ Ruby said out of the corner of her mouth.
‘I don’t believe it’s arrived yet,’ Mrs Nightingale said. ‘As soon as it does, I’ll make sure you see it.’
She bustled off happily, in her element, cheered by a full house for summer. Ruby supposed there had been lean years during the Great Depression, not only for Bayview, but for the whole of Remarkable Bay and each of the holiday towns along the south coast. They’d heard rumours in their circles that some families had lost everything, but the Allens had remained immune from the misfortunes many had faced. They had never stopped coming to Remarkable Bay.
