wife’s precious books in respect for her memory.
Kneeling on the ground, Kate lifted the books from the trunk one by one and placed them on the tissue paper that she’d spread out beside her. There were publications in both English and French, and she made a separate pile of each. It was the French editions she was most interested in for they were harder to come by.
Despite the gloom beneath the house, enough light shone through the wooden lattice work for her to read the authors and titles with ease. Balzac, Dumas, Hugo, collections of poetry by Voltaire and Baudelaire . . . Grandmother Ellie certainly enjoyed her French classics, Kate thought. There were several de Maupassant and Zola, and then moving into the twentieth century, Colette, André Gide . . . There were also French translations of other great European writers: a copy of Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
and Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment.
Kate was fascinated. The fact that her great-grandmother had been an eclectic reader as well as an avid one came as no particular surprise, but the condition of the books did. Some were admittedly more worn than others, but considering their age, most were in a pristine state. She checked the publication dates and discovered that many were much later editions than she would have expected. Some had been published in the 1930s and even the late 1940s, when her great-grandmother would have been elderly.
Again, Kate found the fact touching. Big Jim had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to import French editions for his wife throughout their marriage. Yet Ellie was bilingual. She could just as easily have read the English translations that were readily available in Australia. Big Jim’s gesture seemed to Kate an act of genuine love.
There were two books that did show definite wear and tear, however, one an English edition, the other French. Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
and Victor Hugo’s
Notre-Dame de Paris
were decidedly dilapidated. Old favourites perhaps? Kate opened the flyleaf of both. Inside was inscribed
Elianne Desmarais.
Old favourites, indeed, she thought. Ellie must have brought them with her from the New Hebrides. No doubt they symbolised the dual cultures she’d inherited from her English mother and French father.
There were no more books as such left in the trunk, but sitting in the bottom was further material that looked like business accounts. They were ledgers, at least a dozen of them. She lifted one out and opened it, expecting to see some form of book-keeping, but the ledger’s columns, normally reserved for figures, were ignored. The page was instead covered in the written word, and the written word was French. She squinted in the gloom. She could just make out a date at the top.
10 juillet 1895
Kate took the ledger outside into the sunlight. She sat on the front step and read the first paragraph slowly, translating as she went.
Today there was such excitement. Our steam locomotive engine, which Jim acquired from the government, has finally arrived. It is a Neilson A10 locomotive, or so he informs me. Apparently the government has moved on to more sophisticated models. I have never seen Jim so enthused. He says it will change our lives and I am quite sure it will, but for my part I find it a rather messy thing, belching steam as it does, and noisy too. I shall miss the Clydesdales hauling the trucks along the tracks, such beautiful creatures. But of course we must move with these modern times . . .
Grandmother Ellie’s diaries, Kate thought. Oh my God, the ledgers are Grandmother Ellie’s diaries. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother. She would translate them for her, read them out loud, and Hilda would hear Grandmother Ellie’s voice, she’d hear the voice of the young Ellie about whom she’d always fantasised.
Kate was thrilled by the prospect. This would give a reality to her mother’s preoccupation with the past. No longer would Hilda Durham need to disappear into
Kneeling on the ground, Kate lifted the books from the trunk one by one and placed them on the tissue paper that she’d spread out beside her. There were publications in both English and French, and she made a separate pile of each. It was the French editions she was most interested in for they were harder to come by.
Despite the gloom beneath the house, enough light shone through the wooden lattice work for her to read the authors and titles with ease. Balzac, Dumas, Hugo, collections of poetry by Voltaire and Baudelaire . . . Grandmother Ellie certainly enjoyed her French classics, Kate thought. There were several de Maupassant and Zola, and then moving into the twentieth century, Colette, André Gide . . . There were also French translations of other great European writers: a copy of Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
and Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment.
Kate was fascinated. The fact that her great-grandmother had been an eclectic reader as well as an avid one came as no particular surprise, but the condition of the books did. Some were admittedly more worn than others, but considering their age, most were in a pristine state. She checked the publication dates and discovered that many were much later editions than she would have expected. Some had been published in the 1930s and even the late 1940s, when her great-grandmother would have been elderly.
Again, Kate found the fact touching. Big Jim had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to import French editions for his wife throughout their marriage. Yet Ellie was bilingual. She could just as easily have read the English translations that were readily available in Australia. Big Jim’s gesture seemed to Kate an act of genuine love.
There were two books that did show definite wear and tear, however, one an English edition, the other French. Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
and Victor Hugo’s
Notre-Dame de Paris
were decidedly dilapidated. Old favourites perhaps? Kate opened the flyleaf of both. Inside was inscribed
Elianne Desmarais.
Old favourites, indeed, she thought. Ellie must have brought them with her from the New Hebrides. No doubt they symbolised the dual cultures she’d inherited from her English mother and French father.
There were no more books as such left in the trunk, but sitting in the bottom was further material that looked like business accounts. They were ledgers, at least a dozen of them. She lifted one out and opened it, expecting to see some form of book-keeping, but the ledger’s columns, normally reserved for figures, were ignored. The page was instead covered in the written word, and the written word was French. She squinted in the gloom. She could just make out a date at the top.
10 juillet 1895
Kate took the ledger outside into the sunlight. She sat on the front step and read the first paragraph slowly, translating as she went.
Today there was such excitement. Our steam locomotive engine, which Jim acquired from the government, has finally arrived. It is a Neilson A10 locomotive, or so he informs me. Apparently the government has moved on to more sophisticated models. I have never seen Jim so enthused. He says it will change our lives and I am quite sure it will, but for my part I find it a rather messy thing, belching steam as it does, and noisy too. I shall miss the Clydesdales hauling the trucks along the tracks, such beautiful creatures. But of course we must move with these modern times . . .
Grandmother Ellie’s diaries, Kate thought. Oh my God, the ledgers are Grandmother Ellie’s diaries. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother. She would translate them for her, read them out loud, and Hilda would hear Grandmother Ellie’s voice, she’d hear the voice of the young Ellie about whom she’d always fantasised.
Kate was thrilled by the prospect. This would give a reality to her mother’s preoccupation with the past. No longer would Hilda Durham need to disappear into
Similar Books
