Read Online Captive Wife, The by Fiona Kidman - Free Book Online Page A

remind him with as much dignity as I can muster, of the times he has helped out poor souls down on their luck, which at the moment I certainly am, but the words die in my throat. ‘It is not as if I am asking for money,’ I say.
    He gives me a quizzical look.
    I lower my eyes and slip from my finger the ring that Jacky Guard gave me when I left Australia that first time. It has not left me, not even when I lived in the bush.
    Of course, the toys were an excuse. I did want them, but I want money even more.
    Mr Spyer looks long and hard at the ring.
    â€˜I can lend you a little,’ he says, ‘but I do not want the ring.’He reaches into the drawer where he keep the money and extracts five pounds.
    â€˜You must take the ring,’ I say, and my eyes are hot with tears and wounded pride.
    â€˜No,’ he says. ‘That will do you no good at all, to be seen around Sydney without your ring. What would your husband say? Now, please choose a toy or two for the little ones.’
    â€˜I’ll pay you back,’ I say. I am in two minds as to whether to leave there and then. But I hear a rustle of taffeta behind me and a woman comes towards me, a puzzled frown on her face. She is a woman close to fifty.
    â€˜Why, it’s Betsy Deaves,’ the woman says.
    Nobody has called me that since I worked here at Spyer and Cohen’s, for that is what I was known in those days. Momentarily, I think she must be one of the customers, but there is something more familiar than that about her, and then it comes back to me. My teacher at the Ragged School.
    Before I can say her name, Mr Spyer says, too heartily, ‘Well, yes, fancy you remembering our Betsy, Miss Malcolm.’ He has snatched a wooden horse with wheels out of a tub, a cheap pull-along toy, and thrusts it into my hands. ‘From me, Betsy.’
    I take the toy, for I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I were to turn it down, and place it in my bag. All the while, I consider the woman before me. She looks in better shape than when I last saw her, her portly thighs well strapped in. Her skin is clear and rosy, even if folded a little round the chin. And her hair, which I used to think the colour of mouse fur, straggling out of its bun, is caught up now and coiled around her head in a fashionable way. Altogether, she looks like a woman who pays attention to her looks.
    â€˜Thank you so much,’ I say, endeavouring to recover my wits, ‘but most people call me Mrs Guard these days.’
    Miss Malcolm’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Oh my goodness Betsy, you are not her, not the Mrs Guard?’
    I inform my old teacher that I am indeed Mrs Guard.
    â€˜I did not recognise the name,’ she says.
    â€˜I was never Betsy Deaves,’ I say. ‘Don’t you remember, I did not take my stepfather’s name?’
    â€˜Neither you did,’ she says. ‘But you were Betsy.’
    â€˜And now I am Betty,’ I say impatiently, for all this seems trivial. I show her the ring on my finger, the one that only a moment before I had tried to pawn to Mr Spyer, the gold band with its curving rim, studded with seed pearls. ‘I told you the day I left school that I was going to get married to a whaler.’
    â€˜You were always a forward girl,’ she says in a sharp tone.
    This is a bad turn in the conversation for I have often thought of Miss Malcolm in the years since our paths last crossed, and more kindly than she might have expected. She believed in the gods, something I’ve had reason to ponder over. She had an ear for magic. I am about to say something to improve her opinion of me, but nothing comes out. She too can read a newspaper, better than most. She will have formed her own opinion of me, and I imagine she will see me as having brought it all upon myself.
    I can’t explain what happens then, but I find myself weeping, and the next thing I am being led away from the store by