Kerry Greenwood - Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher

‘You first, my bird,’ she said to Jane and gave her an encouraging grin. ‘Lost your memory, eh? There have been times, ay there have, when I’ve wished that I had the losing of mine. The front room, Phryne?’

‘Yes, it’s all ready,’ answered Phryne. Dr MacMillan escorted Jane out.

She was back in a quarter of an hour, and Jane was, it seemed, rather relieved than otherwise by the examination. Miss Henderson arose and crossed the room under her own power, and the doctor closed the door again.

‘More tea, Jane? What did Dr MacMillan say?’

‘She said there’s nothing wrong with me that time won’t cure, and that I should drink lots of milk and sleep and my memory will come back. Isn’t she lovely?’ asked Jane in a hero-worshipping trance. ‘Could I be a doctor, I wonder? Not a nurse, but a doctor — like Dr MacMillan?’

‘I don’t see why not, but it depends on how hard you study,’ said Phryne. ‘We’ve got it easy, compared to Dr MacMillan. She had to fight the whole medical establishment to become a doctor — in her day they wouldn’t allow women interns into the wards, in case they should see something which would shock their delicacy.’

‘I think. . I think I’m quite good at school,’ faltered Jane.

Phryne scanned the bookshelves and gathered an armload of texts.

‘Here, take one of these in turn and read aloud,’ she instructed, and Jane opened Origin of Species and began to read with some fluency. Phryne was impressed. When the girl reached Alice in Wonderland , she flushed, and dropped the book.

‘I’ve read this before,’ she exclaimed. ‘But I can’t recall how it ends.’

‘Jane, I have a high opinion of your brains. If you never get your memory back, it does not matter. If we can’t find your family, I will send you to university if you want to become a doctor. So don’t worry. I don’t care if you never remember. Why not read the rest of Alice and see how it comes out?’ Phryne left Jane lying on the hearthrug, eating cinnamon toast and dripping happy tears onto Tractatus Philisophicus .

‘Dry old tome, anyway,’ muttered Phryne, and went to find Dot.

Phryne had renovated her house extensively, and one thing of which she was rather proud was the conversion of a dull sitting-room on the ground floor back into two neat little guest-rooms. Both had electric fires, and one still had the original grate. Phryne had allotted this one to Miss Henderson as soon as she had observed that lady’s love affair with fire. The rooms had been washed a pale peach, with bright curtains and bedspread in one, and furnishings of a deep and soothing green in the other. Phryne hoped that Jane, who seemed to be a studious child, would not object to the grass-green, pink and black stripes which wriggled across her bed.

She made a brief check for clean towels and new soap, although she was sure that Mrs Butler would not have tolerated a fold out of place. She was correct. Everything was in order and a small but hot fire burned in the grate in the peach and green room.

The door opened, and Mr Butler entered, carrying Miss Henderson with apparent effort, and Dr MacMillan turned back the bed.

‘Find her a nightdress, Phryne, the poor woman’s worn out with shock and pain. Thank you, Mr Butler,’ she added, and that invaluable man left the room. ‘I’ve written a prescription for a cocaine ointment which should help. There’s nothing more consistently painful than a burn, and I’ve given her some chloral so she should sleep for a few hours. By then she will be feeling better, I think, but she should keep to her bed for at least a week. Are you prepared to keep her, Phryne?’

‘Certainly, poor woman, she can’t go home to a bare house and no care. We can look after her, Dot and me. What should we look out for?’

‘I’ll come each day to dress her face; we must be careful that she does not break the blisters by scratching, or she may have a scar. Otherwise she will be sleepy and sad, and will need a warm bed, plenty of liquids, and light nourishing food, which I dare say your admirable Mrs Butler can manage. There, I’ll just tuck her in, and we’ll leave her alone. Is that fire safe?’

Phryne accompanied the doctor back to the sitting-room, where Jane had mopped her tears hastily and was now studying ‘Glaister on Poisons’. Dr MacMillan observed this with pleasure.

‘You’re a keen study,’ she commented. ‘But you’d better read Alice while you have the chance.’

‘Have you read Alice in Wonderland ?’ asked Jane, astonished, and Dr MacMillan laughed comfortably and took a scone.

‘Certainly I have, and recently, too. A fine book to keep your perspective,’ she bit into the scone. ‘Child, could you go into the kitchen and ask for some more tea? I’m parched with all this work.’

Jane went out, delighted to do something to help. Dr MacMillan laid an urgent hand on Phryne’s shoulder.

‘You must keep that child safe,’ she whispered, spattering Phryne with crumbs. ‘She’s been molested, and I fear that is why she lost her memory.’

‘Raped?’ asked Phryne, turning sick.

‘No. Mishandled, however, and attempted, I’d say, and not too long ago. Maybe a week.’

I’ll keep her as my own rather than let anything like that happen to the poor little thing.’

‘Good. That is what I hoped to hear.’

‘But what if she recovers her memory?’

‘You must find the man,’ said Dr MacMillan. ‘I think she may have come from an orphanage. They send their girls out when they are twelve or thirteen, and rape or worse is the fate of many of them. Perhaps she should be photographed. Someone should remember her.’

Jane came back with more tea, and they read Alice in Wonderland aloud until it was time for a brisk walk before dinner.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I was very nearly putting you out of the window into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous darling!. . now you can’t deny it, kitty!’

Lewis Carroll Alice Through the Looking Glass

Five hours of sleep, and Miss Henderson awoke in pain and in fear, gasping for air.

‘Where am I?’ she whispered, and someone leaned over and turned up the bedside light. Dot helped Miss Henderson to sit up against her arm and found the little jar which Dr MacMillan had instructed the pharmacist to compound.

‘Don’t you try and talk yet, Miss, until I can put some of this stuff on your mouth. Doctor says that it might make your face a bit numb but that’ll be an improvement, eh?’

Dot smeared the cocaine ointment freely over the burns, using the little spatula supplied for the purpose, and then helped her patient to a drink.

‘There, that’s better, isn’t it? You’re in the Hon. Phryne Fisher’s house, and I’m Dot.’

Dot wondered fleetingly if Miss Henderson, too, was losing her memory, but this did not appear to be the case. The woman swallowed the barley water and smiled crookedly.

‘Yes, of course I remember, how nice this all is! What a lovely room, and a fire and all. And that is my favourite shade of peach,’ Miss Henderson took a little more of the cooling drink. ‘I can sit up on my own, really.’

‘All right, Miss, is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?’

‘Why,’ said Miss Henderson. ‘I believe that I am hungry. Indeed, I don’t think I have had anything to eat for ever so long. Can you fetch me something?’

‘Yes, Miss. How about a nice omelette, now? A little toast?’

‘That would be lovely,’ sighed Miss Henderson, relaxing into a pile of feather pillows — in all her life she had never had more than one pillow, as her mother had considered it unhealthy — and smiling a creditable smile.